I went through Reggie's summer course in Rome for the first time in 1998. Totally free of charge, you took care of your own housing and feeding, just show up for class every afternoon, no slacking. It was an awesome experience, both in terms of pedagogy - everyone expected to participate orally, class really about reading and sight-reading Latin from many centuries, very technical in a pragmatic way rather than scholarly - and in seeing just how humble and down-to-earth the head Latinist of the Vatican really was. A real blue-collar "no gods no masters" old-school Milwaukee guy whom you'd expect to find at the Communists Local 282 chapter meeting in a community center basement rather than a monastery on one of the hills of Rome. Shows just how damn good he was that he got to the position he was in all the while thumbing his nose at the formality and insane bureaucracy of the papal curia.
Thanks for sharing your experience. Were you in Rome specifically to enroll in this summer course? How much latin experience did you already have before you started?
