I met Eric Fulford 20 years ago when we were both fellows at the Academy—he in Landscape Architecture and I in Ancient Studies. Although neither of us had ever studied the other’s specialty, a close friendship developed between us, and shortly thereafter I brought him to my excavation at Troy to help design a master plan for visitors to the site. He produced several illustrations for my book on early Roman Imperial sculpture, and prepared a series of beautiful reconstructions of the Temple of Antoninus Pius and Faustina in the Roman Forum. Those reconstructions showed how the temple developed over the last two millennia, and they represented, at least to my mind, better work than any archaeologist dealing with the temple had ever been able to produce. Those drawings were published in Archaeology magazine and were donated to the Academy after his death. Eric provided me with much more inspiration and intellectual energy than I was able to give to him, but our friendship and scholarly interaction is very much a testament to the Academy’s mission— to create a symbiosis of artists and scholars who push the heritage of Rome to a new level of appreciation.
Read a tribute to Eric Fulford from Charles Birnbaum (2004 Fellow).