Teaching Dante’s Medieval World at Prato (by Constant J. Mews – photo by Fiorenzo Fallanti)

I have been privileged to have be­en involved in teaching a subject called Dante’s Medieval World on no fewer than four occasions in Prato, initially in January 2010, and then on three separate occasions in a four-week block during Novem­ber/December 2011, 2013 and 2015. Each experience has been different, not least because each time the students have been different, new ideas have been tried out, and a different set of teachers has been involved. The idea of offering a unit on medieval culture was initially seen as a complement to another unit, The Renaissance in Florence, taught on location in Florence by Associate Professor Peter Howard (Director of the Monash Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies) since 1996.