Photographic archive in Rome - Report from Europe - Brief Article

Magazine Antiques, Feb, 2002 by Miriam Kramer

The American Academy in Rome assumed its present status in 1913 by a merger of the American School of Architecture and the American School of Classical Studies in Rome, both founded in the 1890s. It activities include residential fellowships for scholars and artists, maintaining a research library, supporting archaeological research, and publishing scholarly works and catalogues.

A major component of the academy's program is the photographic archive, which, since November 2001 has been installed in a renovated facility adjacent to the academy's main building in central Rome. The archive contains some sixty thousand photographs on the subjects of architecture, archaeology, art, landscape architecture, and gardens. Chronologically they range from the second half of the nineteenth century to the present. They present an important source of information about the topography of Italy and the Roman Empire.

Access to the archives is available on application to the curator of photographs at the academy or through the following Web site (www.aarome.org/foteca).