Daily schedule
After registration on Sunday afternoon, we invite you to a welcome meeting in the Amersi Lecture Theatre in New Quad, where you will meet your tutors. Join us in Deer Park afterwards for our opening drinks reception, followed by dinner in Brasenose’s historic dining hall (informal dress).
Seminars take place on weekday mornings. Most afternoons are free, allowing you time to explore Oxford, enjoy a variety of optional social events (see details below), or to sit back and relax in one of the college's atmospheric quads.
Your course culminates on Friday evening with a closing drinks reception and gala farewell dinner at which Certificates of Attendance are awarded. For this special occasion smart dress is encouraged (no requirement to wear dinner suits or gowns).
Social programme
We warmly invite all Inspiring Oxford students to take part in our optional social programme, with all events provided at no additional cost. Events are likely to include:
- Croquet on the quad
- Chauffeured punting from Magdalen Bridge
- Expert-led walking tours of Oxford
- Optional visit to an Oxford Library or the Ashmolean Museum
- River Thames afternoon cruise
- Quiz night in the college bar
- Scottish country dance evening (where you do the dancing!)
Seminars and field trip
Monday
The World of Leonardo
We open the week by situating Leonardo da Vinci within his time and place. Through a visual timeline exercise, we’ll connect his paintings and notebooks to the broader cultural currents of the Renaissance. Together, we’ll explore how Leonardo viewed painting as the highest of the arts; superior, in his eyes, to poetry, music, and sculpture because of its power to mirror nature itself.
The day concludes with an introduction to Leonardo’s formative years in Florence, a city alive with artistic innovation, where his fascination with observation and experimentation first took root.
Tuesday
The Milan Years – Masterpieces and Method
On our second day, we travel with Leonardo to Milan, where he emerged as a court artist and engineer. We’ll study his major paintings of this period including The Last Supper, and uncover how his artistic practice intertwined with his scientific investigations.
Through an exploration of his notebooks and his unfinished 'Book on Painting', we’ll discuss how Leonardo sought to transform painting into a true science grounded in optical and anatomical study.
Wednesday
Return to Florence – The Artist as Observer
Back in Florence, Leonardo deepened his engagement with motion, anatomy and emotion. We’ll examine how his notebooks from this period reflect an ever-expanding intellectual curiosity ranging from flying machines to fluid dynamics, and how these studies fed directly into his paintings, such as the Mona Lisa and The Virgin and Child with St. Anne.
Through guided discussion and visual comparison, we’ll consider how Leonardo’s art and writing reveal his belief that nature’s laws could be understood through careful observation and experiment.
Thursday
Seeing with Leonardo’s Eyes
Today we step into Leonardo’s world of drawing. We begin with a practical class exercise, experimenting with line, tone and light to understand the principles behind Leonardo’s rendering of movement and atmosphere.
We’ll then explore his Christ Church drawings, situating them within the intellectual and artistic context of his time.
After lunch, you will visit the Print Room at Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum for an exclusive viewing of Leonardo’s original drawings.
Friday
The Universal Mind: Later Years and Legacy
Our final day traces Leonardo’s later life in Milan, Rome and France, as he moved between artistic commissions and scientific pursuits. We’ll look closely at the library he assembled, revealing his wide-ranging curiosity across subjects from mechanics to philosophy.
The course concludes with an overview of the British Library exhibition, Leonardo da Vinci: A Mind in Motion, a reflection on how his restless intellect continues to inspire scientists, artists and thinkers today.
