Memoirs of the Academy

The Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome, an annual publication of the American Academy in Rome, gathers articles on topics including Roman archaeology and topography, ancient and modern Italian history, Latin literature, and Italian art and architectural history.

Volume 67 publishes three scholarly essays: “Weight Inscriptions on Roman Silver Plate and the Accountability of Workshops” by Alice Sharpless; “The splendori celesti of the San Sisto Icon (Rome): Intercession, Embellishment, and Female Agency” by Kirstin Noreen; and “Paul V, the Washing of the Feet, and the Pauline Chapel in the Quirinal Palace” by Steven F. Ostrow (2002 Fellow). 

The issue also contains reports on research in the humanities by seven 2022 Rome Prize Fellows and one 2022 Italian Fellow: Grace Funsten, John Izzo, Randall Todd Pippenger, Lillian Datchev, Eugenio Refini, Mary Jane Dempsey, Beatrice Falcucci, and Elena Past.

Volume 66 includes the following essays and articles: “Editorial Preface” by Margaret L. Laird; “A Short Introduction to Roman Water Law” by Cynthia J. Bannon; “The Temple of Hercules Victor in Foro Boario (Aedes Aemiliana): Design, Dating, the Decorated Doric, and Domes” by Fabio Barry; “The Global, the Local, and the Glocal: A New Reading of the Priapus Mosaic from the Hispano-Roman Villa of Bobadilla (Antequera, Málaga)” by Rubén Montoya González; “The ‘Fear’ of the Barbarians and the Fifth-Century Western Chroniclers” by Massimiliano Vitiello; “Trickle-Down: Water in Late Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Rome” by Katherine Rinne; “Reckoning with Replication: Architectural Models, Plaster Casts, and Digital Fabrication in Rome’s Recent Exhibitions” by Kimberly Cassibry; and reports on research in the humanities at the American Academy in Rome for 2020–21.

Volume 65 marks both the first redesign of the journal since its foundation and its premiere as an entirely digital publication.

Volumes 65 includes the following essays and articles: “Editorial Preface” by Sinclair W. Bell; “Titurius Sabinus, Mithridates, Sulla, and Vergil: Tarpeia in the Context of 88 BCE” by Jaclyn Neel; “The Theatre of Pompey: Staging the Self through Roman Architecture” by Mario Erasmo; “Αὐτοκράτωρ πολλάκις ἐπωνομάσθη παρὰ τὰ πάτρια: deviazione dalla prassi in età giulio-claudia o reinterpretazione del modello augusteo?” (“Αὐτοκράτωρ πολλάκις ἐπωνομάσθη παρὰ τὰ πάτρια: Deviation from Julio-Claudian Practice or Reinterpretation of the Augustan Model?”) by Patrizia Arena; “Riflessi imperiali: uno specchio monetale romano in bronzo da Verona e gli esemplari correlati” (“Imperial Reflections: A Roman Coin Box Mirror from Verona and Related Specimens”) by Margherita Bolla; “Is Beauty Divine? A Reassessment of the Portraiture of Sabina” by Eve D’Ambra; “Fig Leaves, Photogrammetry, and a Third-Century Masterpiece Rediscovered at Hearst Castle” by Robert Cohon and R. Bruce North; “The Energetics of Lost Cargoes: A New Perspective on the Late Antique Marzamemi 2 Wreck” by Ben Russell and Justin Leidwanger; “Re-Defining Aristocratic Distinction: Christian Verse Invective, Classical Culture, and the Cult of Mater Magna in Late Antique Rome” by Jacob Latham; “The Montalcino Bible’s Steep Mountain of Mysteries” by Herbert Kessler; “ARCANIS NODIS: The Emblematic Thesis Prints of the Roman College” by Louise Rice; “Edward Said, Renaissance Orientalism, and Imaginative Geographies of a Classical Mediterranean” by Robert Clines; “An Etruscan Votive Inscription on Attic Ceramic” by Rex Wallace; “Augury and Observation: Speculations on the Nature of an Ancient Italic Ritual Practice” by Anthony Tuck; “For the Love of the Codices: Paul Oskar Kristeller and the Iter Italicum” by John MacManamon; research reports from the American Academy in Rome; and necrologies of Brian Curran and Eleanor Winsor Leach.

Volumes 63 and 64 include the following essays and articles: “Incised and Stamped Ceramics from Morgantina: Taking the Long View” by Emma Buckingham and Carla M. Antonaccio; “Early Iron Age and Orientalizing Mediterranean Networks from Funerary Contexts in Latium vetus: Identifying Gender and Special Patterns of Interaction” by Francesca Fulminante; “Herakles on the Move: A Greek Hydria’s Journey from Athens to Vulci” by Sheramy D. Bundrick; “A Hemicycle with a View” by Barbara Burrell; “Coinage Programs and Panegyric in the Reign of Trajan: Imagery, Audience, and Gency” by Nathan T. Elkins; “Matidia Minor and the Rebuilding of Suessa Aurunca” by Margaret Woodhull; “Sesostris’ Chariot in a Roman Circus? A New Interpretation of a Scene Depicted on an Imperial Oil Lamp” by Sylvain Forichon; “The Sylloge Einsidlensis, Poggio Bracciolini’s De Varietate Fortunae, the Turris de Arcu, and the Disappearance of the Arch of Titus in the Circus Maximus” by Tommaso Leoni; “Three Drawings of the Domus Aurea and the Colosseum at the Uffizi: Disiecta membra from a Drawing-book after the Antique?” by Marco Burnetti; and reports from the American Academy in Rome covering 2017–19.

Volume 62—a special issue on “National Narratives and the Medieval Mediterranean”—opens with an introduction to the volume, its theme, and its participants by volume editors Kimberly Bowes and William Tronzo. The first section, “Basic Building Blocks—Names and Objects,” includes the following essays: “The Role and Perception of Islamic Art and History in the Construction of a Shared Identity in Sicily (ca. 1780–1900),” by Silvia Armando; “Visigoths, Crowns, Crosses, and the Construction of Spain,” by Francesco Moreno Martín; and “Baptismal Font of the Croats: A Case Study in the Formation of a National Symbol,” by Trpimir Vedriš. The second part, “Historiography and the Monument,” includes “Recreating the Façade of a Fatimid Mosque at the Coptic Patriarchal Museum: A Step Toward the Museum’s Nationalization?” by Dina Bakhoum; “Zionism, Medieval Culture, and National Discourse,” by Judith Bronstein; and “Idealizing Medieval Mediterranean? Creation, Recreation, and Representation of Siculo-Norman Architecture,” by Ruggero Longo.

The final section, “Sites Set to Work,” features “Fortifications as Urban Heritage: The Case of Nicosia in Cyprus and a Glance at the City of Rhodes,” by Nikolas Bakirtzis; “Pre-Islamic Archeology in Tunisia: The Stakes of a Colonial Science,” by Moheddine Chaouali; and “Approaches and Perspectives on the Origins of Venice,” by Erica D’Amico. The volume closes with a related article by Irene SanPietro, “The Making of a Christian Intellectual Tradition in Jerome’s De viris illustribus.”

Volume 61 includes the following essays and articles: “Athens, Etruria, Rome, Baltimore: Reconstructing the Biography of an Ancient Greek Vase,” by Sheramy D. Bundrick; “Made from Life: A Roman Terracotta Portrait in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston,” by Peter Schertz, Pamela Hatchfield, Richard Newman, and Reno Pisano, with Rajiv Gupta and Benjamin Reichardt; “Forgery and the Antiquarian Tradition: The Identification of Horace’s Sabine Villa at Vacone,” by Matthew Notarian, Dylan Bloy, and Gary D. Farney; “Before and Below the Baths of Trajan (Rome),” by Rita Volpe; “Philostratus’ Gymnasticus: The Ethics of an Athletic Aesthetic,” by Heather L. Reid; “Baldassarre Peruzzi at Saint Peter’s: The American Academy Plan and Peruzzi’s modello of 1521,” by Peter W. Parsons; “Giovanni Battista Palumba’s Mythological Progeny,” by Giancarlo Fiorenza; “The School of Athens: Theologians Reconciling Philosophy and Astrology,” by Mary Quinlan-McGrath; “From Palace to Paradise: The Transformation of the Palazzo Sanseverino into the Gesù Nuovo in Naples,” by Maria Ann Conelli; and “Vasi, Piranesi, and the Accademia degli Arcadi: Toward a Definition of Arcadianism in the Visual Arts,” by Susan M. Dixon.

The volume closes with a special section, “New Work on the Archaeology of Late Antique Rome,” which includes three pieces: “Late Antique Restoration and Consolidation of the Aqua Claudia,” by Valeria Bartoloni and Laura Braccalenti; “Hemicycle of the Circus Maximus: Synthesis of the Late Antique Phases Revealed by Recent Investigations,” by Marialetizia Buonfiglio, Stefania Pergola, and Gian Luca Zanzi, with an Appendix by Domenica Dininno and Alessandro Vecchione; and “Piazza Augusto Imperatore, Excavations 2007–2011: The Late Antique Transformations,” by Caterina Maria Coletti and Ersilia Maria Loreti.

Volumes 59 and 60 include the following essays and articles: “Roma and the Virtuous Breast” by Lillian Joyce; “Roman Rhetoric, Metroac Representation: Texts, Artifacts, and the Cult of Magna Mater in Rome and Ostia” by Jacob Abraham Latham; “Female Patrons and Honorific Statues in Pompeii” by Brenda Longfellow; “Visual Evidence for Roman Infantry Tactics” by Michael J. Taylor; “A Reconsideration of Renaissance Antiquarianism in Light of Biondo Flavio’s Ars Antiquaria, with an Unpublished Letter from Paul Oskar Kristeller (1905–1999)” by Angelo Mazzocco; “Varro and the Development of Roman Topography from Antiquity to the Quattrocento” by Seth G. Bernard; “Argicida Mercurius from Homer to Giraldi and from Greek Vases to Sansovino” by Luba Freedman; “The Hieroglyphics of Kingship: Italy’s Egypt in Early Tudor England and the Manuscript as Monument” by Sonja Drimmer; “Regarding Parmigianino’s Early Portraits” by Giancarla Periti; “Locating the Chaldean Embassy to Pope Paul V in the Sala Regia of the Palazzo Quirinale in Rome” by Cristelle Baskins; “Waterworks for New St. Peter’s: The Four Rivers of Paradise and the Cult of Teresa of Avila in 1616” by Pamela M. Jones; “The Aviaries of the Farnese Gardens on the Palatine: Roman Antiquity, the Levant, and the Architecture of Garden Pavilions” by Natsumi Nonaka; “Virgil, Pietro da Cortona, and the Heroism of Aeneas” by Michael C. J. Putnam; and the 2013–14 and 2014–15 Reports on Research in the School of Classical Studies at the American Academy in Rome.

Volume 58 includes the following essays and articles: “Renaissance Ideas of Space,” by Ingrid D. Rowland; “Cosmological Space between Copernicus and Newton,” by Hilary Gatti; “’The Nobel Sense of the Curve’ from Antiquity through Borromini,” by Livio Pestilli; “Utopian Cities in Cinquecento Italy: Games of Space and Knowledge,” by Lina Bolzoni; “Locating the Ustrinum of Augustus,” by Carlos E. Noreña; “The Visual Language of Nero’s Harbor Sestertii,” by Naomi A. Weiss; “A Constantinian Image Program in Rome Rediscovered: The Late Antique Megalographia from the So-Called Domus Faustae,” by Susanna McFadden; “Splitting the Core: The Transverse Wall at the Basilica of San Paolo in Rome,” by Nicola Camerlenghi; “Questions of Identity: Alexander VII, Carlo Rainaldi, and the Temporary Façade at Palazzo Farnese for Queen Christina of Sweden,” by Margaret A. Kuntz; and “Prince Giovanni Battista Pamphilij (1648–1709) and the Display of Art in the Palazzo al Collegio Romano, Rome,” by Stephanie C. Leone (2000 Fellow).

Volumes 56 and 57 includes the following essays and articles: “Parsing Piety: The Sacred Still Life in Roman Relief Sculpture” by Laetitia La Follette; “On the Outside Looking In: Pliny’s Natural History and the Portrayal of Invisibility Rituals in the Latin West” by Richard L. Phillips; “Cult and Circus in Vaticanum” by Regina Gee; “Finding His Niche: On the ‘Autoapotheosis’ of Augustus” by A. J. Droge; “Urbanism and Identity at Classical Morgantina” by Justin St. P. Walsh; “The Visual Dreamscape of Propertius 3.3” by Emma Scioli; “The Pons Sublicius: A Reinvestigation” by Pier Luigi Tucci; “Apollo and Daphne by Antonio del Pollaiuolo and the Poetry of Lorenzo de’Medici” by Luba Freedman; “Leonardo Bufalini and the First Printed Map of Rome, ‘The Most Beautiful of All Things’” by Jessica Maier; “The Matrix: Le sette chiese di Roma of 1575 and the Image of Pilgrimage” by Barbara Wisch; “‘Universal History of the Characters of Letters and Languages’: An Unknown Manuscript by Athanasius Kircher” by Daniel Stolzenberg; “G. B. Piranesi’s Diverse manière and the Natural History of Ancient Art” by Heather Hyde Minor; “Architectural Amnesia: George Howe, Mario De Renzi, and the U.S. Consulate in Naples” by Denise R. Costanzo; and “A Forgotten Dig near Ostia” by Archer Martin.

Volume 55 includes the following essays: “The ‘Joslyn Augustus’ and ‘Good, Bad and Altered’ Symposium at Creighton University” by Gregory S. Bucher and Meghan C. Freeman; “Is This Our Princeps? Reflections on an Unusual Augustan Head in Cedar Rapids” by Richard De Puma; “Recutting Roman Portraits: Problems in Interpretation and the New Technology in Finding Possible Solutions” by John Pollini in collaboration with William Storage; “Reconfiguring Roman Portraits: Theories and Practices” by Eric R. Varner; “A Corpus of Inscriptions: Representing Slave Marks in Antiquity” by Deborah Kamen; “Fortune’s Extremities: W. Lutatius Catulus and Largo Argentina Temple B: A Roman Consular and His Monument” by Eleanor W. Leach; “Urban Real Estate in Late Republican Rome” by Scott E. Craver; “Hadrian and the Oracles of Antinous (SHA Hadr. 14.7)” by Gil H. Renberg; “Bread and Water: Septimius Severus and the Rise of the Curator aquarum et Miniciae” by Rabun Taylor; “The Aura of the Numinous and Its Reproduction: Medieval Paintings of the Savior in Rome and Latium” by Nino Zchomelidse; “Bronzino and Apuleius: An Allegory with Venus and Cupid (London, National Gallery NG651)” by Ross S. Kilpatrick; “New Evidence on Piranesi's Circle in Venice and Rome: The Ambassador Francesco Venier and Carlo Lodoli” by Louis Cellauro; and “Caracalla and the French Revolution: A Roman Tyrant in Eighteenth-Century Iconography” by Susan Wood.

Volume 54 includes the following essays: “From Gregory XIII to Louis XIV: The Art and Politics of Reform in France” by Nicola Courtright; “Gregory XIII and Political Pragmatism in the Age of the Pax Hispanica” by Thomas Dandelet; “Pope Gregory Xiii, Jurist” by Jack Freiberg; “Mimesis, Ceremony, Praxis: The Cappella Paolina as the Holy Sepulcher” by Margaret A. Kuntz; “A Dragon for the Pope: Politics and Emblematics at the Court of Gregory XIII” by Marco Ruffini; “Gregory XIII and the Accademia di San Luca in Rome” by Christopher L. C. E. Witcombe; “Three Passages on Tiberius and the Courts” by Leanne Bablitz; “Porta Triumphalis and Fortuna Redux: Reconsidering the Evidence” by Melanie Grunow Sobocinski; “Rewriting Vergil, Rereading Rome: Maffeo Vegio, Poggio Bracciolini, Flavio Biondo, and Early Quattrocento Antiquarianism” by Elizabeth M. McCahill; and “The Art of the Appraisal: Measuring, Evaluating, and Valuing Architecture in Early Modern Europe” by John Nicholas Napoli.

The contents of volume 53 of the Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome will be published here soon.

Volumes 51 and 52 contain the following essays: “Tools and Scripts for Cursing in Early Modern and Medieval Ireland” by Lisa M. Bitel; “Monvmenta Romae: An Alternative Title-Page for the Duke of Sessa’s Personal Copy of the Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae” by Louis Cellauro; “The Battle of Zama after Giulio Romano: Part II Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus: A Renaissance exemplum virtutis” by Elfriede R. Knauer; “The Woman from Frosinone: Honorific Portrait Statues of Roman Imperial Women” by Molly Lindner; “The Separation of Curses from Blessings in the Latin West” by Lester Little; “Lasciva est nobis pagina, vita proba: Martial and Morality in the Quattrocento” by David Marsh; “Poussin and the Ethics of Imitation” by Richard T. Neer; “Public and Private Places of Worship in the Cult of Asclepius at Rome” by Gil Renberg; “Bramantne’s Hetruscan Tempietto” by Ingrid Rowland; and “Piccolomini among the Illustrious” by Francis Noel Thomas.

Volume 50 contains the following essays: “Architectural Theory and Practice: Vitruvian Principles and ‘Full-scale Detail’ Architectural Drawings” by Ingrid Edlund-Berry of the University of Texas at Austin; “From Vitruvian Scholarship to Vitruvian Practice” by Ingrid D. Rowland of the University of Notre Dame; “Vitruvian Critical Eclecticism and Roman Innovation” by Thomas N. Howe from Southwestern University; “Vitruvius and the Origins of Roman Spatial Rhetoric” by Gretchen E. Meyers of Rollins College; “The Rhetoric of Romanitas: The ‘Tomb of the Statilii’ Frescoes Reconsidered” by Peter J. Holliday of California State University, Long Beach; “Theodelinda’s Rome: Ampullae, Pittacia, and the Image of the City” by Dennis Trout of the University of Missouri, Columbia; “Bramante’s Tempietto and the Spanish Crown” by Jack Freiberg at Florida State University; “Rome, 1592: An Introduction to a Newly Discovered Parish Census” by Thomas James Dandelet of the University of California, Berkeley; and “The Battle of Zama after Giulio Romano: A Tapestry in the American Academy in Rome, Part I” by Elfriede R. Knauer from Haverford, Pennsylvania.

The book also publishes reports from the American Academy in Rome as “Research in the School of Classical Studies at the American Academy in Rome (2004–2005).”

This newest volume from the American Academy in Rome represents the interests of AAR, its fellows, residents, and the larger international community who utilize its excellent library and facilities. The Memoirs series presents a selection of ambitious articles on subjects represented by AAR. These topics include, but are not limited to, Roman archaeology and topography, ancient and modern Italian history, Latin literature, and Italian art and architectural history.

Some of the articles included in this most recent volume are: “The Poet and the Second Prince: Ovid in the Age of Tiberius” by Peter E. Knox; “(Re)locating Domitian’s Horse of Glory: The Equus Domitiani and Flavian Urban Design” by Michael L. Thomas; “The Sala dei Pontefici Vault: Raphael’s School and Napoleon’s Troops” by Mary Quinlan-McGrath; and “Death by Fire: Ovidian and Other Inventions in Two Mythological Paintings by Dosso Dossi” by Ross Stuart Kilpatrick.

Among the twelve articles included in the newest volume from the American Academy in Rome are: “The Native Market for Greek Vases and Its Implications”; “Unpublished Documents Shed New Light on the Licinian Tomb”; “The Chronicle of Francesco Venimbeni da Fabriano”; and “Venice before the Grand Canal.”

Among the seven articles included in volume 47 are: “The Early Augustan Aldobrandini Wedding Fresco: A Quatercentenary Reappraisal” by Ross Stuart Kilpatrick; “Sant’Urbano alla Caffarella, Rome: The Reconstruction of an Ancient Memorial” by Kirstin Noreen; “Monasticism and Western Society: From Marginality to the Establishment and Back” by Lester K. Little; “Portrait of a Lady? Some Reflections on Images of Prostitutes from the Later Fifteenth Century” by Elfriede Regina Knauer; “Proslavery Politics and Classical Authority: Antonio Canova’s ‘George Washington’” by Christopher M. S. Johns.

The book also publishes reports on archaeological projects sponsored by the Academy.

Volume 46 contains these ten articles: “Nuragic Tower Models and Ancestral Memory” by R. Ross Holloway; “Rhythm in Catullus 34” by George Sheets; “Literacy and Luxury in the Early Empire: A Papyrus-Roll Winder from Pompeii” by Susan Wood; “Portraits, Plots, and Politics: Damnatio memoriae and the Images of Imperial Women” by Eric Varner; “Zenodorus’s ‘Colossus of Nero’” by Fred C. Albertson; “‘A Good Woman’: Gender Roles and Female Religious Identity in Late Medieval Bergamo” by Roisin Cossar; “A Little-Known Manuscript, an Unpublished Letter to Aldo Manuzio il Giovane, and a Long-forgotten Humanist Antiquarian by Antonio Casario” by Michael Koortbojian; “‘Th’ United Sense of th’ Universe’: Athanasius Kircher in Piazza Navona” by Ingrid Rowland; “Ideology and Interpretation in Rome’s Parrhasian Grove: The Arcadian Garden and Taste” by Vernon Hyde Minor; “‘Seamlessness Is Next to Godliness’: The Theme of the Monolithic Block in Giuseppe Terragni’s Tombs and Monuments” by Thomas L. Schumacher.

The book also includes one text in the Recent Work in Archaeology section: “Stanford University Excavations on the Acropolis of Monte Polizzo, Sicily, I: Preliminary Report on the 2000 Season” by Ian Morris, Trinity Jackman, Emma Blake, and Sebastiano Tusa.

Volume 45 includes the following articles: “Watching the Skies: Janus, Auspication, and the Shrine in the Roman Forum” by Rabun Taylor; “Reconsidering the So-Called “Sede degli Augustali” at Ostia” by Margaret A. Laird; “Juvenal’s Third Satire: Umbricius’ Rome, Vergil’s Troy” by Gregory A. Staley; “The Neronian Odeum at Cosa and Its Sculptural Program: A New Julio-Claudian Dynastic Group” by Jacquelyn Collins-Clinton; “Like a Virgin: The Meaning of the Magdalen for Female Penitents of Later Medieval Italy” by Katherine L. Jansen; “The Guglie of Naples: Religious and Political Machinations of the Festival Macchine” by Maria Ann Conelli; and “Rome ca. 1820: An Album of Drawings by Luigi Poletti at the American Academy in Rome” by Christina Huemer.

The book also contains four texts in the Recent Work in Archaeology section: “The Water-Mills on the Janiculum” by Andrew Wilson; “A Preliminary Report on New Studies and Excavations at Horace’s Villa: The Campaigns of 1997 and 1998” by Bernard Frischer, Kathryn Gleason, Stefano Camaiani, Laura Cerri, Irene Lekstuti, and Luca Passalacqua; “The Joint-AAR-DAI Research Project at Ostia: 1998 and 1999 Seasons” by Archer Martin and Michael Heinzelmann; and “A Semi-Cappuccina Tomb in the Garden of the American Academy in Rome” by Shawna Leigh.

Among the eight articles included in volumes 43 and 44 are “Interior Staircases in Western Greek Temples” by Margaret M. Miles; “Look Who’s Laughing: Humor in Tavern Painting as an Index of Class and Acculturation” by John R. Clarke; “Greek War Booty at Luna and the Afterlife of Manius Acilius Glabrio” by Dylan Bloy; and “Building Set Pieces in Eighteenth-Century Rome: The Cases of the Chinea” by John E. Moore.

Among the eight articles included in volume 42 are “Thumbs in Ancient Rome: Pollex as Index” by Anthony Corbeill; “The Legal Definition of Prostitute in Late Antiquity” by Thomas A. J. McGinn; “The Fall of the Priest C. Sulpicius Galba and the First Consulship of Marius” by Gary D. Farney; “Spolia: Damnatio and Renovatio Memoriae” by Dale Kinney; and “The Politics of Space in Early Modern Rome” by Laurie Nussdorfer.

Appearing in the Recent Work in Archaeolgy section is “Atrium Vestae: The 1996 Season” by Paul Henderson, Charlotte Olsen, Russell T. Scott, and Christina Trier.