Italian and Latin

Italian and Latin is a degree that brings together two languages with a uniquely close and fascinating relationship. Latin was the language of the Roman Empire and of European scholarship, religion, and law for well over a thousand years, and it is the ancestor from which Italian evolved. Studying both allows you to trace the connections between antiquity and modernity, to read the texts of Virgil and Cicero alongside those of Dante, Petrarch, and Calvino, and to understand how one civilisation grew from the wreckage and inheritance of another.

At University College London, this four-year, full-time BA is split equally between the two languages. You will take modules not only in language, covering speaking, listening, reading, writing, and translation in Italian and reading and translating in Latin, but also in cultural topics including literature, history, film, linguistics, and politics designed to complement your language learning. The programme gives you the flexibility to tailor your degree to the areas that interest you most within each language's cultural context.

The third year is a year abroad spent in Italy, which is central to developing genuine linguistic fluency and cultural understanding and to experiencing the country whose literature and culture you have been studying.

Graduates with this combination of Italian language skills and Latin classical training are well placed for careers in translation, publishing, education, journalism, cultural organisations, and academic research. The analytical rigour and cultural depth that reading literary texts in two languages develops translates into strong performance across many professional contexts. Italian is valuable commercially as a modern European language, while Latin provides analytical precision and access to a vast body of historical and literary material.

Postgraduate study in Italian, Latin, classics, or comparative literature provides routes to further specialisation.