1. General principle

The training of Ambassadors must take into account the particular quality of the candidates for whom it is intended.

An Ambassador will normally be a person already established in professional, entrepreneurial, cultural or institutional life, with experience in governing organisations, human relations, assessing opportunities and assuming responsibility.

It would therefore be inappropriate to subject such a person to an academic pathway modelled on the condition of a full-time student. At the same time, however distinguished professional experience may be, it cannot replace knowledge of the Method of the Continuing Renaissance, the purposes of the Medici institutions, the duties connected with the office of Ambassador, and the ways in which the entrusted District is to be observed, interpreted and served.

The pathway is therefore designed to integrate prior experience with a common method, progressive knowledge of the territory and a responsibility of service. Education is not separated from professional life: it is organised so that it can enter into dialogue with it and make use of real cases, relationships, problems and opportunities.

2. General architecture of the pathway

Education is organised as a single 180-hour International Executive Master, followed by Higher and Continuing Humanistic Education of a modular nature and not subject to any additional compulsory total number of hours.

The Master is the structured academic pathway. Higher and Continuing Humanistic Education instead accompanies the Ambassador’s cultural, methodological and territorial development over time through seminars, meetings, visits and advanced modules.

The Master is also open to qualified participants from outside the Mission. This document illustrates in particular its application to candidate Ambassadors and Ambassadors already appointed.

The Official Master Handbook is the academic and operational reference document for admission, attendance, assessments, tutoring, academic integrity, use of artificial intelligence, the final project and the award of the Diploma. This Modular Path provides a concise institutional and motivational presentation of that framework.

The designation ‘Master’ identifies an internal academic qualification of the Medici Humanistic Academy, without prejudice to any future recognition by universities or other legally accredited institutions.

INTERNATIONAL EXECUTIVE MASTER — 180 HOURS

3. Purpose

The Master is not intended to repeat knowledge that entrepreneurs, executives, professionals or institutional representatives have already acquired in life.

Its purpose is to organise, broaden and connect such experience with the Method of the Continuing Renaissance, developing the abilities required to:

• understand the Mission and represent it correctly;
• exercise authority as responsibility and service;
• understand nobility as quality, generosity and responsibility;
• use artificial intelligence critically and verify sources;
• distinguish facts, hypotheses, interpretations and matters still requiring verification;
• read a District in its history, present reality and potential;
• listen to the community and recognise the vocation of the territory;
• build relationships with institutions, businesses, organisations and international interlocutors;
• understand and preliminarily assess opportunities and projects;
• recognise when qualified specialists must be involved;
• prepare a realistic Action Plan for the District;
• responsibly assume the entrusted function of representation and liaison.

The Master is therefore not merely theoretical preparation, but methodological, territorial and project-based education capable of connecting knowledge with concrete experience.

4. Duration and format

The Master comprises a total of 180 hours and is ordinarily organised into 45 four-hour training sessions, distributed over an indicative period of eleven or twelve months.

The prevailing format is live online teaching, integrated with in-person or hybrid meetings and guided territorial activities. The indicative distribution established by the Official Master Handbook is:

• 136 hours of live online lessons and laboratories;
• 24 hours of in-person or hybrid meetings;
• 20 hours of guided territorial activities.

The Academic Directorate may adapt the distribution among online, hybrid and territorial activities without changing the total of 180 hours and while respecting the purposes of the programme.

The annual duration allows knowledge to mature progressively, the memory of the work to become cumulative and the final project to undergo successive revisions, avoiding the artificial concentration of the entire pathway into a few months.

5. Recognition and enhancement of prior competences

Before the pathway begins, the Academy reconstructs the participant’s personal, professional and service profile through the curriculum vitae, an interview and documentation of significant experience.

Among other things, the following are considered:

• entrepreneurial and professional experience;
• executive and institutional responsibilities;
• cultural, philanthropic or service activities;
• international and relational experience;
• knowledge of territories, communities and economic systems;
• project-design, digital and research competences;
• responsible use of artificial-intelligence tools.

Prior competences are not treated as a simple ‘discount of hours’. They are instead enhanced through the Personal Learning and Service Profile, the choice of cases, assignments, tutoring and application of the content to the District.

The essential learning objectives, training obligations and completion requirements established by the Official Master Handbook remain common to all participants.

6. The two phases of the Master

The 180 hours form a single pathway, divided into two consecutive phases.

First 96 hours — 24 training sessions — approximately six months

The first phase establishes the common language and the methodological abilities essential for understanding the Mission, using sources and artificial intelligence correctly, reading the territory, listening to the community, representing the institution and beginning to interpret opportunities and projects.

At the end of the first 96 hours, the candidate may undergo an interim assessment. For Nobles of Florence and Medici Honorary Consuls aspiring to the offices of Ambassador or Vicar, successful completion of this phase constitutes one of the pathways for acquiring the eligibility requirement established by the Regulations.

Eligibility makes it possible to be considered for appointment, but does not automatically confer an office, assign a District or grant powers of representation.

Subsequent 84 hours — 21 training sessions

The second phase deepens the method through territorial observation, interdisciplinary discussion, project design, relationship building and development of the Ambassador’s District Action Plan.

A candidate who has already been appointed may continue the Master while beginning, under guidance, to apply its method within the District. In this way, the remaining 84 hours also mature through real problems, relationships and responsibilities.

7. Modular structure of the 180 hours

The programme is organised into the nine modules established by the Official Master Handbook. The detailed content of individual lessons is governed by the Master Curriculum and Course Catalogue.

Module I

Duration: 20 hours

Civic Humanism, identity of the Continuing Renaissance, and the relationship among the person, culture, economy, institutions and community.

Module II

Duration: 16 hours

Authority as responsibility, nobility, generosity, discernment, loyalty, confidentiality, conflicts of interest and service.

Module III

Duration: 24 hours

Dialogue with universal knowledge, responsible use of artificial intelligence, formulation of questions, research and verification.

Module IV

Duration: 24 hours

Hierarchy of evidence, historical, legal, economic and scientific sources, degrees of certainty and interdisciplinary synthesis.

Module V

Duration: 24 hours

Historical and contemporary reading of the District, tangible and intangible resources, stakeholders, critical issues, vocations and community listening.

Module VI

Duration: 16 hours

Representation, protocol, communication, relationships with institutions and businesses, partnerships and international networks.

Module VII

Duration: 28 hours

From opportunity to project: objectives, alternatives, beneficiaries, feasibility, sustainability, risks, specialists and humanistic coherence.

Module VIII

Duration: 20 hours

Guided laboratory for developing the District Action Plan and the priorities for the first twelve months.

Module IX

Duration: 8 hours

Final assessment, presentation of the Plan, responsibility colloquium, method, sources, limits and ability to make reasoned decisions.

Total: 180 hours.

8. First phase — 96 hours: objectives and interim assessment

The first 24 lessons constitute the initial operational and methodological phase. Their purpose is not to make the candidate ‘complete’, but to verify that the candidate possesses the method and maturity required to begin, if appointed, an accompanied phase of activity.

At the end of the 96 hours, the candidate must demonstrate in particular the ability to:

• present the Mission correctly and explain the internal, cultural and honorary nature of the related offices;
• understand the fundamental principles of the Continuing Renaissance;
• distinguish personal prestige, authority, responsibility and service;
• use artificial intelligence as a research tool and not as an authority;
• identify sources, recognise degrees of certainty and flag what requires verification;
• conduct a preliminary reading of a District and recognise its stakeholders, resources, needs and vocations;
• communicate with institutions, businesses and communities without exceeding the mandate;
• recognise the limits of one’s own competences and the need to involve qualified professionals.

The interim assessment may include applied exercises, interviews, simulations, written assignments and verification of activities required by the Academy. For those interested in operational offices, a positive result constitutes one of the eligibility pathways established by the Regulations.

9. Eligibility, appointment and accompanied start of activity

Successful completion of the first 96 hours is not equivalent to appointment. Assessment for the office of Ambassador remains reserved to the competent Medici authorities and also takes into account personal qualities, reputation, capacity for service, territorial needs, compatibility with the Mission and the candidate’s actual willingness to assume the office.

If appointed, the candidate may begin activity in an accompanied form while continuing the Master and completing the remaining 84 hours.

Initial activity must be regarded as part of educational maturation: the candidate applies what has been learned, gathers real experience, brings cases and problems into dialogue with the Academy and periodically submits their work to tutors and institutional contacts.

10. Second phase — 84 hours: consolidation and project

The subsequent 21 lessons deepen and consolidate the competences developed in the first phase.

Training focuses in particular on:

• deeper observation of the District;
• research of sources and interdisciplinary synthesis;
• knowledge of communities and network building;
• analysis and comparison of alternative opportunities;
• human-centred project design and integrated feasibility;
• progressive preparation of the Ambassador’s District Action Plan;
• reflection on real problems encountered during any accompanied activity;
• preparation for the final assessment and responsibility colloquium.

The second phase transforms the method learned into applied judgement, avoiding both academic abstraction and operational improvisation.

11. Ambassador’s District Action Plan

The final project is an Action Plan relating to the District or territorial area in which the participant works. It need not necessarily consist of a large investment that can be implemented immediately. It may also create the conditions that enable the District to develop more complex initiatives over time.

The Plan normally includes:

• a concise description of the District and its identity;
• interpretation of the territorial vocation;
• main tangible and intangible resources;
• critical issues and questions requiring further study;
• stakeholders and relationships to be built;
• objectives for the first twelve months;
• institutional meetings and economic or cultural relationships to be promoted;
• the first initiative or concrete priority to be developed;
• possible sources of investment or support;
• specialists and professional competences to be involved;
• risks, necessary conditions and alternatives;
• timeline and expected results;
• relationship arrangements with the competent Medici institutions.

The Plan is developed progressively through tutoring, revisions and interdisciplinary discussion.

12. Completion of the Master and Executive Diploma

Completion of the 180 hours does not coincide merely with physical attendance at lessons. The participant must fulfil the obligations established by the Official Master Handbook, pass the assessments, present the Plan and complete the final colloquium.

According to the Handbook, to obtain the Diploma the participant must:

• complete at least 80% of the required hours and make up the activities required;
• pass the prescribed assessments;
• present the Ambassador’s District Action Plan or approved final project;
• pass the final colloquium;
• comply with academic-integrity rules and administrative obligations.

The internal qualification awarded is: Executive Diploma in Civic Humanism, Territorial Leadership and Human-Centred Project Design.

The Diploma certifies the education completed but does not, by itself, confer titles, dignities, membership of the Mission, appointments or territorial offices.

HIGHER AND CONTINUING HUMANISTIC EDUCATION

13. Purpose

Completion of the Master does not exhaust the Ambassador’s education. Humanistic knowledge, the capacity for judgement and understanding of the territory must continue to grow together with experience.

Higher and Continuing Humanistic Education is therefore a modular programme subsequent to the Master, without any additional compulsory total number of hours and without interfering with the Ambassador’s professional and institutional life.

Its purpose is to keep open the dialogue among experience, universal knowledge and service, so that Ambassadors do not remain merely recipients of education but progressively become witnesses, interlocutors and masters of experience for future candidates.

14. Forms of continuing education

Continuing education may be organised through:

• short update seminars;
• thematic advanced modules;
• conferences with scholars, entrepreneurs and institutional leaders;
• study visits in the Districts;
• meetings in archives, museums, villas, businesses, workshops and cultural institutions;
• laboratories devoted to real cases and opportunities;
• sessions reviewing territorial Plans;
• exchange meetings among Ambassadors;
• periodic conversations with masters of the Academy.

Activities may be attended individually or grouped into progressive thematic pathways.

15. Areas for further study

The subjects already identified by the Academy are retained as open areas of continuing education and not as a second compulsory cycle of an additional 180 hours.

Dialogue with the classics, civic virtue, common good, freedom, responsibility and the relationship between culture and government.

Renaissance society, arts, economy, technology, territorial institutions, limits of the historical model and contemporary application of the method.

Formation of the person, discernment, nobility acquired and inherited through example, generosity, authority and service to the community.

Historical and legal sources, economic data, scientific literature, verification, citation, degree of certainty and conflicting interpretations.

Relationship among disciplines, collaboration with experts, limits of personal competence and project dialogue with universal knowledge.

Real economy, innovation, energy, environment, technological transformations, social impact, sustainability and human dignity.

Conferences, visits and learning pathways devoted to local history, heritage, productive activities, landscape and territorial traditions.

16. Continuing education during the mandate

The Academy may provide that each Ambassador participate annually, in forms compatible with the responsibilities exercised, in at least some of the following activities:

• an update seminar or module;
• an exchange meeting among Ambassadors;
• a review session of the Ambassador’s territorial Plan;
• a presentation of an experience, case or project;
• a conversation with a master of the Academy;
• a visit or activity providing direct knowledge of the Ambassador’s own District or another District of interest.

Continuing education makes it possible to transform the concrete experience of Ambassadors into a common heritage of the Academy and the Continuing Renaissance network.

17. Overall value of the pathway

The 180-hour Master must enable the participant to understand the method, apply it responsibly, read the territory and build a coherent project. The first 96-hour phase may, in the cases provided for by the Regulations and following a positive assessment, allow acquisition of one of the eligibility requirements necessary to be considered for an office. The subsequent 84 hours complete and consolidate the education through to the Diploma.

Higher and Continuing Humanistic Education instead accompanies subsequent maturation without becoming a second compulsory Master.

The Ambassador’s preparation therefore arises from the encounter among:

• prior experience;
• the method learned;
• progressive knowledge of the District;
• service actually performed;
• humanistic reflection continuously deepened.

Entrepreneurs, executives and professionals are not asked to suspend their lives in order to return to being full-time students. They are invited to place their experience, relational ability, intuition and a portion of their personal resources in dialogue with a community and a territory, progressively integrating them with the knowledge required to exercise responsibility with awareness, measure and service.

This document must be read together with the Official Master Handbook and the General Regulations in force. In the event of differences concerning academic obligations, assessment procedures or institutional requirements, the documents specifically competent for those matters shall prevail.