If you’re planning (or hoping) to be with Reggie in Rome this summer, you’ll be joined, Deo sinente, by a contingent of the Cornell Society for a Good Time. As for myself, though I imagine that I also speak for some of my colleagues, I can’t imagine having a better time than studying Latin in Rome with one of - and certainly the most famous of - the Pope’s Latin scribes. This post is meant as an explanation, for eveyone who wants to go, of what you need to do to get there. Since I’ve already spent one summer with Reggie, I hope that what I share here will be useful for others who want to join Reggie for the first time.

Perhaps the first thing to note, since, benevole lector, you’re coming by this information through a blog, Fr. Reginald Foster does not do computers. Moreover, I listened to at least one diatribe of his about the evils of the Internet, specifically the rapidity with which rumors, slander, and all sorts of false information can be spread around the world. (Since we’ve never indulged in rumor mongering or any type of slander on this site, it certainly wasn’t this blog he had in mind.) In short, he doesn’t even like computers. When Pope Benedict’s first speech (always in Latin) to the Cardinals had to be finished almost immediately after his election and haste of composition was need, Reggie resorted to dictation and a bottle of wine to expedite the process. Otherwise, he writes by hand or with a typewriter. So you will not be able to reach this man by email and he will be suspicious of anything you say that you learned about him over the Internet.

Reggie can be reached by snail mail and fax. These are the preferred methods, I believe; telephone might also be possible, but I don’t know for sure. This is his address:

Reginald Foster
Piazza San Pancrazio 5A
I-00152 Rome ITALY

The fax number is: 00 39 06 58 54 03 00

The very first thing to do is to write him a letter (or fax) expressing your interest in spending next June and July drinking chianti, sweating a great deal as you lug your Lewis & Short all over the city of Rome, and learning a great deal of Latin. You can write the letter in English or in Latin; it does not matter. Do not bother explaining to him your academic background, the glories of your classical education, and all about your perceived level of Latin competence. Next to him, you have no level of Latin competence, and even if you are fresh from your first year of grammar, it matters not at all.

Be sure to include a reply address in your letter or fax of interest. I don’t know about fax, but as for a letter, do not expect a lightning fast reply. It may take awhile, if memory serves.

In response to your letter or fax of interest, Reggie will send you a hand-written letter, in English, glorious in its multi-colored inks. Yes, he writes the same letter in multiple colors of ink. I have no explanation. Inclosed you will find, I think, two sheets, one for the Iuniores and one for the Seniores. These sheets will be thick with typewriter written exercises, front and back. You only have to answer the questions on one side, either of the Iuniores sheet or of the Seniores, it does not matter. You will not be pigeon-holed because you answered the Iuniores questions; you will not be given a glorious seat of honor because you answered the Seniores questions. He just wants to see your general level of competence so that he can tell you if your Latin is good enough for the summer “experience”, as he calls it, to be worthwhile.

In my opinion of his opinion, what “good enough” amounts to is that you’ve covered the first year of an average college level course. You’ve at least looked at all the grammar, you’re familiar with the declensions and conjugations, even if you’re not perfect. Mind you, it’s better to be perfect in these things when you show up, but it’s not at all necessary. Please, no one hesitate to go to Reggie in Rome because you think that your Latin is mediocre. Just go! he’s only going to bite your head off when you get there, and once you’re there, you’ll quickly make up, both in class and on your own time, any remaining deficiencies as to the basics of declensions and conjugations.

Once you’ve done one of the sides of one of the sheets, mail it back to him, and await his reply. It will probably be awhile before you hear from him again. Months went by, I think, before I heard back from him, but I had sent him my sheet in January, I think. Here is a good place to emphasize that it’s probably better to do this whole process of contacting him and sending back to him the sheet sooner rather than later. If you put it off too long, you might not hear from him before the time to leave for Rome arrives. It’s all right to show up anyway, but you’ll probably feel a little sheepish doing that in what’s a new and somewhat intimidating situation to begin with.

Which is why I’m writing this post now, at the end of November. Send him your letters now - and you know who you are - and that will be more than plenty of time. I will do likewise, telling him that I would like to return for another summer.

When you do receive a reply to your sheet mailing, he will send you some corrections of your exercises - again, in many colors of ink - and will tell you that all the rot you’ve learned about Latin up until now will be cleaned out during the summer with him. He’ll also tell you the exact date and where to show up - roughly the beginning of June - and what to bring.

Here are the things that you need to bring: a brain, Lewis & Short, Gildersleeve and Lodge’s Latin Grammar, and a determination to become a much better Latinist. Reggie likes to say about being a competent Latinist: you need to know everything (i.e., about the grammar), and at the end of the day, you still have to think. If you want to bring other dictionaries, fine, but you must have Lewis & Short besides.

This is an important part of what Reggie teaches you. He joked - I think it was a joke - that he goes through one Lewis & Short a year. That is, he destroys it, wears it out. This is the mentality that you need to adopt: go to the dictionary again and again and again until you’ve put the whole thing into your head. Reggie has been doing Latin for how long? and he says that he’s in his dictionary everyday. You do the same, even if you think that you “know” Latin, and have put that whole dictonary-using phase behind you. It’s not so much the number of words one needs to learn as the richness and subtlety of meaning which so many Latin words have. You’ll know the common second meaning of the word - but, ah! - do you know it’s first, primary meaning, one that is rarely used? It’s the same kind of situation, only more so, in Greek.

The reason he wants you to bring the Lewis & Short and nothing else is because smaller dictionaries must leave out the subtleties of meaning, and those are precisely the things he does’t want you to miss. He doesn’t seem to think that the Oxford Latin Dictionary (OLD) is a significant improvement and it’s limited more strictly to the classical period, a disadvantage in Reggie’s classroom. Plus, it’s heavier.

Some people worry that the dates of Reggie’s course will conflict with other things they have scheduled around that time. Bear in mind, though, that while it’s better to be there the whole time, it’s not necessary. When I went, many people arrived late, even weeks late - the whole course is about eight weeks - and left early. The course itself doesn’t exactly build in the way that a normal college course does. It’s the same thing, in a way, everyday. On the classroom days, the day is divided as follows: Iuniores, mixed session, Seniores, all of which is followed by the optional “sub arboribus” session. All of the sessions are optional really; Reggie doesn’t accept a dime of payment and he’ll be there teaching whether five people show or seventy.

My experience was that it was most valuable to go to all of the sessions throughout the day. Basically, the same thing happens at each session: the class reads from selected texts which he has photocopied and formed into giant packets of over-sized sheets. There are different groups of readings for Iuniores and Seniores, while within those two groups, there’s a three day cycle with a different block of readings for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, which is repeated Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Reggie claims that he’s never put the same thing twice into those packets. He’ll call on a person to read (you’ll soon learn to pay attention to Latin accentuation!), then translate, and he asks questions about the grammar or meanings of words. As things occur to him, he explain more in depth, or ask someone how this or that would be said in Latin. You never know when he’s going to call on you and the question might be anything. I’ve never been so engaged in a classroom before, especially during the first days when I was just getting used to his style.

The classroom meetings start at 2PM with the Iuniores for 1.5 hours, then a half-hour break. Then the mixed session from 4PM to 5:30PM followed by another half-hour break. Then the Seniores from 6 until 7:30PM followed by another break of roughly a half-hour until those who have remained bring wine and snacks to the little garden inside the grounds of the Teresianum, where we eat, chat in Latin, sometimes in small groups, sometimes as a whole group, or on alternate nights, we read light Latin texts, with few or no questions about grammar asked.

Don’t be intimidated by the spoken Latin side of things. You’ll be surprised how much you can do in a supportive environment in which everyone else is facing the same challenge of using Latin actively for the first time. It’s a lot of fun once you get over the initial nervousness. Even when the students in my first summer got together for parties, the “nerds” among us would continue to say what we could in Latin. And, hey, when the cheap glass jugs of table wine are flowing, let me tell you, this gets easier!

In summary, here’s what you need to do.

1. Send Reggie a letter or fax expressing interest at the address given above.

2. Once he replies return to him the sheet of exercises.

3. Await his reply and show up when he tells you!

The course itself costs nothing and the fieldtrips are very inexpensive - just some local train fare, basically. The main cost is housing. This can be expensive. For unmarried persons, I think that the best way to go is a convent. If someone is interested, I can look into getting the details from a friend who stayed at a convent near St. Peter’s. Book early! is the most I can say. For couples or a group of people, this building was quite nice and well-situated for getting to Reggie’s class by foot each day. It has a great balcony and an open roof with basketball court. It’s the first option I’m going to look into for this summer.

Anyone who has more information about housing options, please do share it with us all.

Here is one place to look for scholarship money for the summer. Those who have been with Reggie before might also consider giving some money to the scholarship fund in order to help others, especially students, go for the first time.

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