Features

Oxford University’s Chichele Professor of Medieval History Christopher Wickham delivered the final lecture of a three-part series entitled “The Origin of Italian City Communes 1050–1150” to eager audiences at the Villa Aurelia last Wednesday.

The Academy community and its friends gathered in the twilight hours of a beautiful autumn evening at the Villa Aurelia to ring in the academic year, introduce new Fellows and present the program of public events to Trustees, Advisors, Friends, and many Roman guests.

Millicent Mercer Johnsen and I became fast friends the minute we met, which was in the fall of 1988, just as I was starting out as the new president of the American Academy in Rome.

“Who Owns Antiquity? Museums, Repatriation, and Armed Conflict”, was the question C. Brian Rose, FAAR’92, RAAR’12, posed at the inaugural Home from Rome lecture. 

Seamus Heaney, who died in Dublin on Friday at the age of 74, was the William B. Hart Poet-in-Residence at the American Academy in Rome for three weeks in May of this year.

After a year-long strategic planning process, the American Academy has launched important changes to the format and content of its public programming in the humanities.

Peter Benson Miller began his three-year tenure as the Andrew Heiskell Arts Director on August 1.

This spring, the American Academy began a new chapter in its contribution to advanced studies in the humanities.

Glenn Murcutt is the William A. Bernoudy Architect in Residence and works as a sole practitioner producing residential and institutional buildings throughout Australia from his home in Sydney. He is an honorary member of the American Institute of Architects and has been the recipient of the Alvar Aalto Medal, the Pritzker Prize, and the AIA Gold Medal.

Paul Moravec, FAAR’85, is the current Paul Fromm Composer in Residence, a prolific composer and University Professor of Music at Adelphi University.

Administration, staff, Fellows and friends gathered on the beautiful backyard terrace of the Villa Chiaraviglio last week to raise a glass and bid the fondest of farewells to Andrew Heiskell Arts Director Karl Kirchwey, FAAR’95.

The 2012–13 Walks and Talks at the American Academy are one of the moments of the Academy experience that not only set it apart from its peer institutions, but also form the intellectual basis for shared discussions between artists and scholars.

During the final week of May, the American Academy in Rome celebrated its 2013 Rome Prize Fellows with three consecutive public events.

Karen M'Closkey is the winner of the Garden Club of America Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania.

On Monday, May 27, 2013, the American Academy in Rome celebrated the internationally renowned director and screenwriter, Maestro Bernardo Bertolucci, by awarding him the McKim Medal in honor of his significant accomplishments and contributions to cinema.

Last Tuesday evening at the Villa Aurelia, American Academy in Rome Director Christopher S. Celenza, FAAR’94, sat down with Harvard University Professor Jill Lepore and an international audience to consider “Arms in America: Gun Violence in the United States in Global Perspective” for the seventh installment of the Academy’s series of Conversations That Matter.

An enthusiastic crowd gathered last Thursday in the cortile of the American Academy in Rome to hear Irish Nobel Laureate and William B. Hart Poet-in-Residence Seamus Heaney read a selection of poems illuminating the wide span of his distinguished career.

Christia Mercer is an American Academy in Rome Scholar in Residence and the Gustave M. Berne Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University.

Last Thursday and Friday evenings saw the unfolding of a series of readings, conversations, and exchanges among scholars and writers of various disciplines who share a common interest in the Roman poet Ovid.

Wednesday evening saw the opening of AAR Gallery’s new exhibition, Stone From Delphi, which features thirty-five watercolors by the American artist and AAR Arts Advisor Wendy Artin and poems by the Irish Nobel Laureate and William B. Hart Poet-in-Residence Seamus Heaney.