Features

The American Academy in Rome held its annual McKim Medal Gala at the Villa Aurelia in Rome on May 26, 2011, in honor of Italian artist Luigi Ontani, whom the Academy named the seventh McKim Medal laureate.

Four years ago (19-21 June 2007), the American Academy in Rome hosted a conference co-organized by the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles and the Bibliotheca Hertziana—Max Planck Institute for Art History that explored the collecting of religious art in and of Italy.

Whether it is climate, or the use and overuse of timber resources, or the extent and effects of urbanization, or a host of other issues, the history of the Mediterranean environment in antiquity is full of unresolved debates.

Internationally-renowned artist Antoni Muntadas will bring two Janiculum neighbors together on Tuesday 7 June 2011, when the American Academy in Rome and the Real Academia de España en Roma will unite to present two Muntadas events as well as a new project by Italian artist Giulio Squillacciotti.

It was five full days, but still it seemed like a whirlwind when the AAR’s Board of Trustees made their annual visit to Rome from 25 May to 29 May.

Stephanie Malia Hom is the recipient of the 2010-2011 Lily Auchincloss Post-Doctoral Rome Prize in Modern Italian Studies. She arrived in Rome from the University of Oklahoma, where she is Assistant Professor of Italian in the Department of Modern Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics.

Three days in late May—Wednesday the 25th, Friday the 27th, and Saturday the 28th—see one of the Academy’s oldest and most consistently rewarding traditions, the annual presentation of work by current Rome Prize Fellows in the AAR’s School of Fine Arts.

Carly Jane Steinborn is the Phyllis G. Gordan/Samuel H. Kress Foundation Pre-Doctoral Rome Prize Winner in Medieval Studies, and one of two Fellows lucky enough to live and work at the Academy for two years.

It may well become an annual ritual. On April 30, the archaeologist Gianni Ponti—veteran advisor to the American Academy in Rome and a dean at Rome’s IES—once again brought a somewhat incredulous group of AAR Fellows to the Roman aqueducts near Vicovaro (45 kilometers northeast of the city).

On Thursday, April 28, 2011, a public gathering of over one hundred people saw the cortile of the McKim, Mead & White Building at the American Academy in Rome transformed by a collaborative installation entitled X LOCUS.

The American Academy in Rome held the Janet and Arthur Ross Rome Prize Ceremony on April 14 at New York City’s Harmonie Club to announce the winners of the 2011–12 Fellowships. The ceremony was well attended by over three hundred guests, including many Academy Trustees, Fellows, and Residents.

The American Academy in Rome’s Centenary Celebration Dinner took place at the Plaza Hotel in New York on April 13, 2011.

The American Academy in Rome’s Casa Rustica (in the present Bass Garden) occupies the precise site where, on Thursday, April 14, 1611, Galileo made his first demonstration to a learned audience in Rome of his new invention, named on this occasion as the “telescope.”

The American Academy in Rome is pleased to announce the winners of the 2011–12 Rome Prize.

The American Academy in Rome has its fair share of traditions, but one of the most hallowed is its annual Spring Trip for Fellows.

Paul Rudy is the recipient of the 2010-11 Elliott Carter Rome Prize in Musical Composition. He arrived in Rome last September from Kansas City where he is a Professor at the Conservatory of Music and Dance at the University of Missouri.

On Monday 4 April at 9 PM, the Sala Aurelia at the American Academy’s Villa Aurelia will be transformed into a theater space and will resonate with the sights and sounds of the Caribbean, as Nobel Laureate and William B. Hart Poet-in-Residence Derek Walcott leads a cast including actors Wendell Manwarren, Giovanna Bozzolo, and Dean Atta in the world premiere reading of his new play Moon-Child (Ti Jean in Concert).

To mark the 400th anniversary of Galileo's first demonstration of his telescope on the site of the Casa Rustica, the Academy is offering three events, starting on Thursday 7 April 2011 (5 PM), with an installment of the AAR’s “Conversations That Matter” series.

Porta San Pancrazio is one of the western gates of Rome that opens along its Aurelian Walls. For centuries it has served as a main conduit for traffic to Rome that passes along the Via Aurelia Antica.

The Trustees of the American Academy in Rome request the pleasure of your company at the Janet and Arthur Ross Rome Prize Ceremony announcing the winners of the 2011–12 Rome Prize.