Institutional Archive

Black and white photograph of a bird's eye view of the McKim, Mead & White Building with scaffolding
View of the McKim, Mead & White Building with scaffoldings structure in Rome, Italy, 1912 (photograph from the Institutional Archive, American Academy in Rome)

Overview

The Institutional Archive of the American Academy in Rome was established in 1992 with the aim of collecting, preserving, maintaining, and providing access to records which document the origins, evolution, activities, and accomplishments of the Academy and its surrounding community. Based in the New York office, the archive consists of over 500 linear feet of paper and electronic records, including correspondence, meeting minutes, reports, plans, publications, photographs, oral histories, audio and video recordings, architectural drawings, newspaper clippings, and ephemera. Of particular interest are the “Fellows Files”—approximately 80 linear feet of application materials, correspondence, and other documentation related to the Academy’s distinguished fellows, dating back to 1902.

Since 1965, AAR has collaborated with the Smithsonian Institution’s Archives of American Art (AAA), completing four deposits of materials, with materials ranging in date from 1855 to 2012. Included are the records of the Academy’s predecessor institutions—the American School of Architecture in Rome and the American School of Classical Studies in Rome—as well as the records of executive staff, faculty, and Board of Trustees. A portion of the records from 1855 to 1981 have been digitized from microfilm and are accessible through the Institutional Archives or on the AAA website.

To view all Academy materials at the Archives of American Art, please visit the AAA website.

For more information about the Institutional Archive or the history of the American Academy in Rome, please contact the Academy archivist at archives [at] aarome.org (archives[at]aarome[dot]org).

Collections

The Institutional Archive is subdivided into nine record groups: (1) Corporate Structure and Documentation; (2) Officers, Directors, and Executives; (3) Operations; (4) Other Collections, Related Entities, and Special Projects; (5) Printed Material; (6) Reference and History; (7) Media; (8) Artifacts and Memorabilia; and (9) Rome Photograph Collection. 

You may browse or search through our institutional archives through ArchivesSpace at https://archive.aarome.org.

If you are interested in viewing a record, please send the full citation to the Academy archivist at archives [at] aarome.org (archives[at]aarome[dot]org).

You may also consult the Finding Aids below or contact the Academy archivist at archives [at] aarome.org (archives[at]aarome[dot]org) with your specific research questions.

Access & Use

The Institutional Archives are closed to the public. The archives are accessible to researchers by supervised appointment only. Researchers must provide valid photographic ID.

To accommodate remote research, scanning requests of under fifty pages are free of charge; larger requests cost $1 per page. Depending on the size and timing of a request, scans may take days or weeks to deliver. The archivist reserves the right to decline a scanning request.

Materials produced by the Academy are protected by copyright and may only be reproduced with express written permission from the Academy. Materials within the Institutional Archive may be copyrighted by a third party; researchers are responsible for determining the copyright status of all archival materials, and acquiring permissions as necessary.

All material found in the Institutional Archive should be cited as follows:

American Academy in Rome records, 1855–2018. American Academy in Rome, New York City.

Sensitive Materials Statement

Archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information including, but not limited to, administrative records, personnel files, financial documents, development files regarding bequests and donors, and Board of Trustees meetings and minutes. As a result, restrictions by the archivist will be placed on the above records if they are less than thirty-five years old. Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual’s private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which the American Academy in Rome assumes no responsibility.

In addition to its voluminous Photographic Archive, the archives located in Rome consist of materials dating back to the first half of the twentieth century, in the form of manuscripts, papers, correspondence, diaries, and guest books, from such classicists, architects, and muscologists as Gorham Phillips Stevens, Albert William Van Buren, and William Oliver Strunk. Below is a listing of these materials. Please contact Sebastian Hierl, the Drue Heinz Librarian, at s.hierl [at] aarome.org (s[dot]hierl[at]aarome[dot]org) for research requests.

American School of Classical Studies in Rome

- Annual report of the managing committee of the American School of Classical Studies in Rome. 17 vols. in 5. 1st (1895/96)–17th (1911/12). Extracted from the American Journal of Archaeology, s. 1, v. 1 (1897)–12 (1908) and from the Bulletin of the Archaeological Institute of America, v. 1 (1909/10)–4 (1912).

- Catalogue of the Museum of the American School of Classical Studies in Rome. Manuscript. 1907. Handwritten inventory by Austin Morris Harmon, with additions and corrections by Richard Norton.
Continued by: American Academy in Rome, The Museum, Inventory of Acquisitions [1924–59].
1 box.

American Academy in Rome Museum

- Inventory of Acquisitions. Manuscript. Handwritten inventory by Albert W. Van Buren, with additional notes in other hands. Covers 1924–59.
Continues: Catalogue of the Museum of the American School of Classical Studies in Rome.
2 books.

American Academy in Rome

- Register of the American Academy in Rome. Manuscript. 2 volumes. Register of Fellows and Summer School participants, with addresses, 1930/31–1979/80. Also includes the names of director and professors for each year. List of directors, professors-in-charge, and annual professors, 1919/20–1939/40.

- Amacadmy: the Newsletter of the American Academy in Rome. Vol. 1, n. 1 (June 1978)–fall 1990; 1991–94.
1 book.

- Society of Fellows newsletter. December 1986–Spring 2005 discontinued. Online for 2001–9.
1 box.

- Scrapbook of newspaper clippings describing history, buildings, gardens, activities and events (exhibitions, concerts, conferences, lectures), fellowships, people, and daily life at the American Academy in Rome. 1981–2004.

Also includes one clipping from 1958 and one from 1978.

To highlight: an interview with the American poet Anthony Hecht and a talk with the artist Philip Pearlstein (1981), clippings about a photographic exhibition on Ezra Pound and an interview with Sophie Consagra (1982), Gore Vidal informal talk (1983), clippings about the Villino Bellacci history and Duilio Cambellotti (1993), an interview with the Nobel Prize for Literature Josif (Joseph) Brodsky, one with Cristina Puglisi (library renovation supervisor), clippings about Hillary Clinton and Oscar Luigi Scalfaro visit and the renovation of the American Academy, an article on Robert Venturi and a talk with the director Adele Chatfield-Taylor (1994), the exhibition L’architettura sacra angioina nel Regno di Napoli 1266–1343 (1996), clippings about the photographer and scholar Georgina Masson and Keith Haring exhibition (2003).
1 box.

Newspapers clippings, & c. 1935-6-7-8. Scrapbook of newspaper clippings, concert programs and photographs documenting events and fellowship at the American Academy in Rome, 1935–38, during the directorship of Chester H. Aldrich (1871–1940). Also includes one clipping from 1934 and one from 1972.
1 box.

American Academy in Rome. Villa Aurelia

- Villa Aurelia visitors book. Manuscript. Signatures of visitors to the Villa Aurelia, Rome, 1911–14.
1 book.

- Villa Aurelia, Rome. By Bruno Zevi, architect (1918–2000). 19 leaves of plates: plans, mounted photos (ca. 1948). Measured drawings (1:100) and photographs documenting the condition of the Villa before the restoration of 1947–48 and the new plan.

- Villa Aurelia, Rome / replanned by Dr. Bruno Zevi. 19 leaves of plates: plans, mounted photos (1947?). Drawings and photographs documenting the restoration work going on, the condition of the Villa before and after the restoration in 1947–48 and the new plan.
2 large folios.

Daehn, Ketounia de. – Italian language teacher. She was the wife of Peter de Daehn, librarian of the American Academy in Rome (1948–61).

- Memory books. Manuscripts. 2 volumes (1923–37; 1938–57). Her memory books contain photos, signatures, drawings, and other memorabilia, many of them from persons associated with the Academy.

Stevens, Gorham Phillips. – Architect and archaeologist (1876–1963). Director of the American Academy in Rome (1912–13 and 1917–32); later director of the American School of Classical Studies of Athens (1939–41) and acting director throughout World War II. Dedicated to the study of Greek architecture and topography of the Acropolis, he published works about the Erechtheion, the Propylaea, and the Parthenon.

- Diaries. Manuscript. 7 volumes. November 6, 1911, to October 1, 1932. There is a transcription of the first volume in print (November 6, 1911, to May 24, 1916) by Christina Huemer, Drue Heinz Librarian Emerita.

- Correspondence. 1912?–1927?. Not ordered.
1 box.

Strunk, William Oliver. – Educator, musicologist (1901–1980). He was the first professor of musicology at Princeton University. Visitor at the American Academy in Rome (1943–51). Donated his private library of c. 950 volumes to the Academy in 1974.

- Papers (manuscript). 1 volume, 9 binders, 7 boxes, 1 portfolio. Notebooks, manuscripts of essays, correspondence with scholars and editors, music transcriptions, Strunk’s own musical compositions, legal and financial papers.

Correspondence (1937–75): several papers not chronologically ordered. Course notes. Research notes. Scores. Transcriptions.

Described in: Remembering Oliver Strunk / edited by Christina Huemer and Pierluigi Petrobelli. Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon, 2005.

Van Buren, Albert William. – American classicist (1878–1968). He was a Fellow of the American School of Classical Studies in Rome, 1903–6, and later served as associate professor and librarian of the School; subsequently he was librarian (1913–26) and professor of archaeology (1923–46) at the American Academy in Rome. Elizabeth Douglas Van Buren, his English wife, was an archaeologist.

- Papers of Albert W. and Elizabeth D. Van Buren. 4 boxes, 2 portfolios of oversized materials. General correspondence (1904–67) divided into different periods. Correspondence about publications. Information about the E. Van Buren collection at Smith College. Personal correspondence. Photos and documents. Memorabilia, including guest books (January 20, 1931, to October 29, 1961), diplomas, personal objects.

Allied Military Government. Division of Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives

- Reports and papers. Mixed media. 2 boxes, 1 folio, 1943–Memoranda and reports. Lists of monuments in Italy. Other publications about history, art, and architecture in Italy. Soldier’s guide to Italian towns. Civil affairs handbooks.

Mimeographed and published reports of the Allied Military Government and the Allied Commission relating to monuments in Italy and other European countries during and just after World War II.

Some documents labeled “Confidential” or “Restricted.”

Italia. Ministero per i beni e le attività culturali. United States Army Service Forces

- Cultural property protection. Mixed media. 1 box, [1973]–2009. Civil affairs arts, monuments and archives guide. Publications about heritage resource preservation. Includes bibliographical references.

Further Research

For further research into the history of the American Academy in Rome, consult the resources below.

Contact

All inquiries can be directed to the Academy archivist at archives [at] aarome.org (archives[at]aarome[dot]org).