The center of the Roman Empire, the cradle of the Renaissance, the birthplace of opera, the country with the world's most influential cuisine as well as its highest concentration of museums – students of Italian Studies have an uncommonly rich historical and cultural treasure at their fingertips. Accordingly, the field in Basel appeals to a wide range of interests: life in Italy; the language, culture, and literature of Italy; the history of Italy and Ticino (the Italian-speaking canton of Switzerland); and contemporary issues. The courses in Italian linguistics consider the Italian language and its use in a wide range of historical, social, and communicative contexts. The courses in literary studies address the philological and historical analysis of literary texts from the origin of the Italian language to the present day, with special emphasis on the relationship between literature and other works of arts, especially figurative works. In language-practice courses, the students develop their communicative and redactional skills in the Italian language.

Italian Studies at the University of Basel is divided into two sections: literary studies and linguistics.

Italian literary studies considers the literature and culture of Italy and Ticino from the Middle Ages to the present from the perspectives of philology, stylistics, and cultural history, with a particular emphasis on the material history of literary texts and on relationships between literature and other arts, such as theater, fine arts, music, and cinema. Research in this field focuses on Dante, Renaissance epics of chivalry, Early Modern Italian dramaturgy (including opera), and the novel from the modern period to the present.

The first goal of the Bachelor curriculum in Italian linguistics is to identify the specific features of the Italian language (as a system) in comparison to other contemporary languages. The second goal is to address the linguistic variations of the Italian language itself in the contexts of time, space, society, and communication. Depending on the context, this can include consideration of phonetics and intonation, vocabulary, syntax, punctuation, and the organization of texts.

Our Bachelor curriculum gives students a foundation in the academic study of the primary fields of Italian literary studies and linguistics. Courses in literary studies are framed in terms of the larger developments in aesthetics and literary theory. Literary analysis is undertaken with particular emphasis on how aspects of cultural history, anthropology, and society appear in literary texts. Courses in linguistics focus on functional linguistics, a field in which linguistic structures are considered in terms of their communicative functions.

The Bachelor curriculum includes such modules as foundations of Italian literary studies; analysis of literary texts; foundations of Italian linguistics; the history of the Italian language; and language competence, including redactional and communicative skills.

All courses of the curriculum are taught in Italian.