Liceo Foscarini is the oldest high school in Venice; it was founded in 1807 when Venice was under French rule, by decree of Prince Eugene Napoleon, the viceroy of Emperor Napoleon I in Italy.
In 1867 the school was named after Marco Foscarini the scholar who became doge (i.e. chief of state, President) of the Republic of Venice.
Since the date of its foundation the school has been located in the former convent of S. Caterina. A few pictures of the building are on-line.
The school has 39 teachers, about 450 students in 19 classes, and is a "liceo classico" that is a secondary school for pupils aged 14 - 19 mainly devoted to the study of such subjects as: Italian, Latin, Greek, History, Philosophy, English as a Foreign Language and Art as well as scientific subjects such as: Mathematics and Computer Science, Physics and Natural Science. The school has laboratories, an ancient library , and a gymnasium.
There are several extracurricular activities:
Foreign language Courses held by native speakers are organised for students who want to improve their skills in foreign languages other than English (French, German, Spanish, Chinese, modern Greek), or need specific work for Cambridge exams preparation.
The Chess Club has been a popular and rewarding activity for quite a long time. Every year a course for beginners is held at the liceo, and Foscarini takes part in national and international tournaments and competitions, with most successful results.
Drama: Every year the drama club sets up a performance based on classical or contemporary works.
Drawing and painting after school lessons are available for students.
Sports: PE teachers and external staff are involved in coaching such extra curricular sports activities as football, volleyball, rowing, basketball, hockey, athletics and sailing, which students can take part in using the school facilities.
In February 1996 Foscarini became the first high school of Venice and one of the first in Italy to publish his own pages on the web, thanks to the Polo Est project of the Venice province (i.e. county), a net of Venice schools.
In November 2001 the domain name liceofoscarini.it was registered and the site was moved to a server of the school (CentOS Linux Server, with Apache HTTP Server, PhP and MySQL) with the new URL http://www.liceofoscarini.it.
The Liceo Foscarini in Venice
