Matthew Brennan is the 2020 Booth Family Rome Prize Fellow in Historic Preservation and Conservation and a PhD candidate in the School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering at Indiana University in Bloomington.
He participated in AAR’s exhibition Cinque Mostre 2020: Convergence in February and March 2020, exhibiting a collaborative video installation created with the designer Eugenia Morpurgo.
Can you briefly describe your Fellowship project?
My Fellowship project was intended to be a major component of my dissertation: a new three-dimensional digital survey of the Accademia of Hadrian’s Villa, focusing specifically on the ruins of the so-called South Theater. A large part of the Accademia is on private land: it is not part of the state-owned archaeological park of Hadrian’s Villa, and is therefore generally inaccessible to the public, as well as scholars. Yet, the Accademia is home to many famous structures and sculptures, such as the marble Muse group now in the Prado museum, and the Furietti Centaurs in the Capitoline Museums. Using a drone and a high-resolution camera, as well as working with a geophysical survey team from Livorno, I planned to carry out a “virtual excavation” through magnetometry and ground-penetrating radar, and to create a high-resolution 3D model that could be studied remotely, without direct access to the site. Luckily, I was able to accomplish most of these objectives before having to leave Rome early in March 2020.
How did you approach your project while you were in Rome?
I made a number of trips to Hadrian’s Villa in the fall of 2019 and January 2020 with rental cars. I had the permission of the family that owns the Accademia, but I still needed to coordinate my visits with them. Before arriving at the American Academy, the Art History Department at Indiana University awarded me funding to travel to Madrid and Stockholm to create 3D scans of the marble muse sculptures that come from the South Theater at Hadrian’s Villa. Once in Rome, having access to the many museums where pieces from the villa now reside was helpful as well.
Is there one Roman site, experience, or person that stands out for you in terms of impact on your project, or on your work more generally?
By far the most impactful experience of my time in Rome was the uncertainty and upheaval caused by first the closure of Italy and then of the American Academy due to the coronavirus pandemic in March 2020. All museums and cultural sites were closed in early March, and all travel was severely restricted—and while this had dire implications for myself and the other Fellows at the AAR and our collective time in Rome, it revealed an aspect of my research and work that I hadn’t thought of before: people across the world who were suddenly unable to travel could now “virtually visit” important Italian cultural sites using 3D models, 360-degree videos, and virtual reality experiences. This experience led me to add an additional component to my dissertation—focusing on how these technologies can extend access to cultural sites and monuments.
Did your project change over the course of your time in Rome? If so, in what ways?
My project definitely changed when I was in Rome. With the help of Giulia Barra, the AAR’s permissions and programs associate, I received permission from the Municipality of Padova and the Mayor’s Office of Siena to create 3D scans of the Scrovegni Chapel and the Sala dei Nove, in Padova and Siena respectively. These projects are continuations of my research in the application of virtual-reality technologies to art history education. I had hoped to visit and digitize many more sites, but unfortunately I was forced to leave Rome halfway through the Fellowship due to the COVID-19 crisis. Nevertheless, I was able to complete a significant amount of work before being forced to leave Italy, and the monastic solitude of mandatory quarantines in March and April allowed me to get a fair amount of work done!
What do you think you will carry forward from the time you spent in Rome?
My time in Rome instilled in me a new appreciation for the city in a number of ways. Namely, being at the American Academy was an incredible experience while it lasted—the community is so vibrant and welcoming. It was wonderful to experience Rome with others from myriad backgrounds, some of whom, like myself, were quite familiar with the city, and others that had never been to Italy before. Additionally, my abbreviated time in Rome made me realize all of the aspects of the city that I’d told myself I’d experience “next week” or “next month,” or “next time.” When, suddenly, the surety of a “next time” was taken away, the importance of being in Rome “now” was highlighted. I briefly entertained the idea of remaining in Rome to weather the Coronavirus pandemic at my PhD advisor’s apartment in Monteverde, but quickly reached the conclusion that without the community of Fellows at the AAR, as well as its outstanding library, and with all of the libraries and cultural sites in Rome closed for the foreseeable future, the right decision was to depart. Still, I hope there is a next time, in Rome!