Francesco Benelli

When you start this course, Benelli's accent will make it hard to understand, but that's probably mostly due to the fact that you're unfamiliar with the architecture terms so it all sounds foreign. Just pay attention and you will adapt quickly. The course is interesting. You learn a lot about Western architecture and it's nice to walk around the city, recognizing the different characteristics of the architectural styles used and knowing why the architects made those choices. He posts the power points for the class every morning on CourseWorks. You have to take good notes (I recommend typed) and attending the discussion sections (which are only about 5 for the semester) is EXTREMELY helpful, especially approaching exam times. The TAs relieve a lot of stress. My first exam I nearly failed, but through the TAs help for the final, I managed to get a B in the class overall.

Hmmm..this is a tough review. When we had class, during normal class hours, this man said some really brilliant things. His accent can be tough now and then, hes personable, friendly, stays in great contact via email, and...well, when he screws up, hes willing to play ball. We only had this class maybe 8 times all semester, do to a bunch of weird cancellations....so he made the midterm and paper into pretty open-ended options. I guess my only complaint is that i wanted more. a lot of students were frustrated by the time changes, reschedules...but in my mind, that doesnt make him a bad prof.

Benelli is a very nice guy, always willing and eager to answer questions, and knows just about EVERYTHING about Italian Renaissance architecture. Nonetheless, I would be lying if I didn't say that this class made me want to scream. As others have said, it was basically one big, fruitless exercise in slide memorization. The lectures were too focused on minutia and included almost no theory of any kind. The quantity of slides we were expected to memorize for the exams was simply unreasonable, particularily as there was no slide list, the slides we did have were often not labeled, and Prof Benelli often neglected to give us the name of the architect, date, etc during the lecture, meaning, I guess, that we were supposed to look them all up on our own. I studied like I have never studied before for the exams and still found them to be quite difficult. However, Benelli clearly uses a big curve in the end, because while I got a B- on the midterm and couldnt have done much better on the final, I somehow ended up with an A in the class. My advice: only take this class if you TRULY have a STRONG interest in Renaissance architecture.

Don't be scared away by this man's accent! The half of the class that dropped after the first day because of Benelli's heavy Italian accent really missed out. He's a heck of a smart guy -- he speaks five languages, knows basically everything about Italian Renaissance architecture, and about just about everything else besides. You can come to him with just about any question and get an incredibly well-informed and in-depth answer. He also cares a lot about his students and really wants every single person to get interested in the subject and to excel. Although there are probably better lecturers in the department, Benelli was a super nice guy, really encouraged me to get excited about my paper, and was available to meet with me whenever I wanted. Definitely a good class.

take it. even if you don't have to. it's super interesting and fun. there were a lot of slides for the midterm and final, but i think everyone did alright even though it was basically impossible to actually learn them all. the main thing thought is that benelli is a fantastic lecturer. he does have an accent, but you'll get used to it. and if you have questions he's happy to address them. the weekly drawings were a great break from sitting in the library like we have to do for most of our other courses. the discussion sections were great preps for the exams, but otherwise pretty boring.

midterm, two short papers, final, two short papers

Very good class taught by an excellent professor. Prof. Benelli knows an enormous amount about the Italian Renaissance and gets very excited about having students appreciate it/understand it as well. He is always willing to meet with students in office hours or hours outside of office hours and treats students with respect. Francesco does have an accent, but it is pretty easy to get used to and offers a dimension of authenticity to the class (Italian prof teaching Italian RA). The lectures were ok to follow, but I would recommend taking notes on a lap-top to keep up with the ideas and analyses Francesco provides at lightening-speed.

Group presentation, short paper, 15-20 page seminar paper with presentation.

Benelli is great. At first I was very concerned about his accent but after about 2 weeks, you get used to it. He is a great lecturer and the fact that he is a practicing architect really shows--he really does care about the subject. He often interrupted himself to ask the large class if everyone understood everything. When someone asked a question (even stupid, irrelevant ones) he always gave the question a thorough and insightful response. He's got a sense of humor too which made this class seem like a nice break in my day rather than another 1.5 hour lecture. As for the exams, he expects you to know the date, name, and architect of all the works in the seen in class (and always posted promptly on courseworks)--standard for art history, I know, but it gets extremely difficult and confusing when you have to differentiate one floorplan of a church to another floorplan of a similar church. My only advice is to start studying very early if you really care about getting 100% on the ID section of the exam. The best part about this course, though, was how it really made me appreciate architecture specific to New York. The drawing assignments force you to explore New York and make observations as to how all the previously studied, mostly European-in-origin, styles had been transplanted to New York. Now, when I'm walking around, I find myself constantly staring up at the building faca…

This class was great. Benelli really knows his stuff and has a lot of interesting facts to enliven the subject. Some of the lectures get very detailed oriented on things architects might be interested in, but since I'm I wasn't, but thats only a few lectures. His accent is not hard to get used to and gives the class more authenticity, since this is an Italian teaching about Italian RA. He is very smart and fair grader. Everything you need to know for his tests will be covered in class and a quick read over a website on architecture if you havnt been exposed to it before.