17 Oct

What is an American Academy doing in Rome?  Activating history.

From high on the Janiculum Hill, the American Academy in Rome sits poised above the city, looking down across the colorful chaos.  Every year, carefully chosen scholars from across the states are sent to this place in order to glean the abundance of intellectual stimulation that has collected here for over two and a half millennia.  The Academy property itself sits upon layers of history, built up from the remnants of the Aurelian Walls and the aqueduct of Trajan.  The same piece of land was developed by a series of Popes and noble families in the 1600s and was where hundreds of 19th century Romans lost there lives defending the city from Napoleon III.  Now centered around the McKim, Mead & White building, the Academy has repurposed the Janiculum as a center of academic studies with the mission “to foster the pursuit of advanced research and independent study in the fine arts and humanities.*”  Here, scholars use Rome’s bountiful history and complex contemporary urban center to move forward.  Rather than disturbing the past or stalling the future to come, the academy promotes an active interaction between today’s academics and Rome’s history to create a rich new dialogue.

*Mission statement from aarome.org