Tuesday, June 7 at 7 pm. The Italian Cultural Foundation at Casa Belvedere - 79 Howard Avenue, Staten Island, NY 10301. A presentation by Francesco Bonavita, Ph. D. In-person and virtual options. Register for in-person here. Register for virtual here. The epithet “Rome, the eternal city” has always resonated in Francesco Bonavita ever since he was a child.

Taken at face value, it means the city has always existed and will continue to be so indefinitely. Recently, Bonavita revisited the Baths of Caracalla site, which for many centuries accommodated as many as 8,000 visitors each day.

Even though the area has suffered defacement and pillaging over time, one can still admire its architectural splendor, which provided inspiration for future builders of cathedrals during the Middle Ages, and, in modern times, it inspired architects when designing train stations across the world.

Thus, the term “eternal” is not simply relegated to the notion that Rome will perpetuate itself, but rather that the antiquity of Rome will continue to be a source of inspiration. The baths, as with so many other structures, embodied the identity of ancient Rome. In this presentation, we hope to give credit to Romans baths and to see why they were admired as wonders of the world.

About the speaker

Our presenter, Francesco Bonavita, was born in Rome and has dedicated his life to teaching foreign languages. He holds a BA degree in French and a minor in German. He earned his master’s degree in French at the University of Wisconsin and completed his doctorate at CUNY in Comparative Literature on the Italian Renaissance.

In addition to Italian, French, Spanish, German and Portuguese, Bonavita has also taught Japanese. His language experience ranges from high school level to college levels. He taught at Kean University and NYU, where he was a supervisor of second language methodology. He published articles on second language learning and is the author of Giardino Italiano, an intermediate Italian textbook, published by Pearson. Professor Bonavita writes about Italian cities on his blog, www.thewondersofitaly.com and has a YouTube lecture on the Etruscans.