It is the oldest American art school in Florence, and it was the first in Europe to be accredited by the National Association of Schools of Art and Design (NASAD). For many years, SACI students benefitted from its affiliation with Bowling Green State University (BGSU) for transcripts, and today Paris College of Art is the school of record.
Over the decades, SACI has welcomed thousands of students pursuing degrees in the arts as well as students wishing to spend a semester or a summer pursuing art and design education in the heart of Europe.
Until 2021 SACI Florence offered undergraduate and graduate degrees, but in the wake of the pandemic it temporarily closed its doors. It is reopening in Fall 2023 to welcome undergraduate students wishing to spend a semester or two studying art or design as well as art history and liberal studies in Florence. The new art + design curriculum, which builds upon the foundations laid by the previous SACI program, pays homage to what has come before, while imaging what comes next. We have re-envisioned a curriculum that places open-ended enquiry at the meeting point of creative practices, contemporary discourses, and historical context. The studio courses are designed to mirror creative practices and will be conducted as intensive workshops that foster technical and conceptual research across disciplines. The aim is to equip students with the critical tools necessary to address broader cultural, political, and social concerns. Uniquely positioned in Florence, within the living history of inherited Humanist ideals, students will be asked to re-think the relevance of established systems while re-imaging new forms for our collective future.