The British School at Rome: One Hundred Years - Hardcover

Wallace-Hadrill, Andrew

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0904152359 ISBN 13: 9780904152357

Publisher: British School at Rome, 2001

Synopsis

The British School at Rome celebrates its first hundred years of activity with this historical account, richly illustrated with over 270 images drawn from its archives. The main narrative, by the current Director, examines the way the School has responded to the opportunities offered by Rome in bringing together archaeologists and historians with artists, architects and art historians in a fruitful marriage of interests. It underlines both the continuities that link the vision of Thomas Ashby to the present, and the transformations by which the institution has adapted itself to the changing current of European history. Chapters on the artist scholars by two artists closely linked with the School, Alistair Crawford and Stephen Farthing, look at the diverse responses to the opportunities offered by living in Rome. This attractive publication will be of interest to all concerned with Britain's cultural engagement with Italy, in the fine arts, archaeology, and general. `The first visit marked me for life, as it has many others before and after me. It aroused a passion for Italy, and a long, slow-burning, love for the School. It was profoundly educational precisely because the School was not a purely academic institution, set in the marvellous cultural location of Rome, but included, as part of its very essence, practising artists as well.' - Geoffrey Rickman.

About this title

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

"The first visit marked me for life, as it has many others before and after me. It aroused a passion for Italy, and a long, slow-burning, love for the School. It was profoundly educational precisely because the School was not a purely academic institution, set in the marvellous cultural location of Rome, but included, as part of its very essence, practising artists as well."

Review

A splendid celebratory volume.' (Andrew Selkirk Current World Archaeology, Vol. 4, No. 6, Aug/September 2010)

The British School was one of several academic foundations that grew up in Rome in the closing decades of the 19th century. ... This book celebrates the schools centenary. Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, director since 1995, recounts the vicissitudes of the institution dryly, taking sometimes indiscreet pleasure in details of personal feuds, financial and administrative contretemps, scandals over women residents, and the awkward relations between the school and the Fascist regime. He details Lutyenss successive plans and other modifications of the site, charting the gradual expansion of the building to its happy, but, as he says, largely accidental resolution as a spacious villa round a central courtyard, not achieved until the 1930s. Ashbys memorable archaeological achievements are recounted; more great things were done in that field after World War II under John Ward-Perkins and David Whitehouse in the 1970s and 80s, and under Richard Hodges in the 90s.'
'The book ... festively illustrated ... bears witness with its crowd of contributors to a strongly developed sense of the schools corporate values as a modern institution, proud of its imperial past, but ever renewing itself to ensure that its remarkable academic resources are at the service of a much changed Britain—and Italy.' (Andrew Wilton The Art Newspaper 127, 2002)

About this edition

• Publisher: British School at Rome
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0904152359
• ISBN 13: 9780904152357
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 228