Lauren Sercu presents her project on the “Abduction of Persephone” in front of the artwork.

Niagara University students — including a Fredonia resident — had the unique opportunity to learn more about the university’s mission and identity by studying and visiting the artistic masterpieces in Rome.

The annual program was developed in 2017 by professor of religious studies Dr. Amelia Gallagher, the university’s mission director at the time, and Marian Granfield, who was director of art history and museum studies, “as a way to bring our mission and identity directly to the students (and faculty) through the study of Catholic art in Rome and the Vatican collections,” said Dr. Gallagher.

With the exception of a couple of years during the COVID pandemic, a group from Niagara has traveled to the Eternal City each spring to view in person the artwork they studied in class.

This year’s group viewed baroque treasures, sacred architecture, and famous landmarks during a 10-day itinerary that included visits to St. Peter’s Basilica, the Colosseum, the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill, Borghese Park and Gardens, San Callisto Catacomb, and the Roman Pantheon. They also traveled along the Appian Way and spent a full day in Florence, where they visited the Piazza del Duomo and the Uffizi Gallery.

Making the experience even more meaningful was the chance for the students to present their research in front of the work of art itself.

Lauren Sercu, a political science major from Fredonia, presented her project on the “Abduction of Persephone” by Gian Lorenzo Bernini at the Galleria Borghese.

“When presenting a final project, it is very rare to be able to talk about the object you researched with it present; this was one of the coolest final presentations I’ve given as a student at NU,” she said.

This year’s trip held special significance, as the NU group also completed the Jubilee Year pilgrimage established by Pope Francis, which required them to cross the threshold of the Holy Doors of the four major papal basilicas in Rome — St. Peter’s, St. John Lateran, St. Paul Outside the Walls, and St. Mary Major. The group also attended a candlelight rosary procession in St. Peter’s square and was in attendance for Pope Leo XIV’s first public audience, where they were announced along with other pilgrimage groups from around the world.

This was the most memorable part of the trip for Preston Bartels, a history and religious studies major from Niagara Falls, N.Y., who officially joined the Catholic church in April.

“As a new Catholic, it was an experience that could not be described in words,” he said. “He blessed each and every one of us and our items that we had brought with us.” For Bartels, that was a rosary he received from his fiancée’s grandmother, which he said he keeps with him “as a memento of Christ, the Virgin Mary, my new emergence into the faith, my fiancée, and my grandmother-in-law.”

While in Rome, the group stayed at St. John’s University campus in the heart of Rome. The trip was funded in part by a scholarship established by the Borgese family.