Calendar

The Thomas Spencer Jerome Lectures Series is among the most prestigious international platforms for the presentation of new work on Roman history and culture. They are presented at both the American Academy in Rome and the University of Michigan. In 2018, the forty-fifth year of the lecture series, Robin Lane Fox, a noted scholar of ancient history, will discuss the natural world in pagan and Christian Rome.

The lectures will explore the differing approaches to the natural world by pagans and the early Christians, from Paul and the Gospels to circa 500 CE. They will bring out differing emphases in their respective writings and art and will ask what practical effects such different ways of seeing had on contemporary life.

Lecture I
November 6, 6:00pm
Villa Aurelia, American Academy in Rome
Largo di Porta San Pancrazio 1, Rome

Lecture II
November 8, 6:00pm
British School at Rome
Antonio Gramsci 61, Rome

Lecture III
November 12, 6:00pm
Lecture Room, American Academy in Rome
Via Angelo Masina 5, Rome

The first lecture, “Cosmos and Landscape,” will delve into pagan and Christian views of creation. It will also investigate the dominance of humankind over the beasts and the vegetal world, as well as modern theories of a shift from a horizontal view to a vertical perspective of the relation between the natural world and the divine, which Christianity endorsed. 

In the second lecture, “Animal and Vegetable,” Lane Fox will address the hierarchy and symbolism of animals and plants in pagan and Christian art. The impact of these views on both groups’ experience, including martyrs and Christian holy men in isolated settings, will be considered. (This lecture will be held at the British School at Rome.) 

The final lecture, “Signs and Catastrophes,” will reflect upon the previous two and compare omens and signs, prodigies and miracles, in pagan and Christian worldviews. A particular focus will be explanations of natural catastrophes, including volcanic and seismic disasters, which are still part of our world today. The lecture will conclude with reflections on the end of the world and the perverted natural symbols used to address it.

Robin Lane Fox is an ancient historian and gardening writer best known for his works on Alexander the Great. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford, and a reader in ancient history at the University of Oxford. A fellow and tutor in ancient history at New College from 1977 to 2014, Fox now serves as garden master and as extraordinary lecturer in ancient history for both New and Exeter Colleges. His major publications, for which he has won literary prizes, include studies of Alexander the Great and ancient Macedon, Christianity and Paganism, and the Greek Dark Ages. His most recent book, published in 2015, concerns the patristic author Augustine of Hippo. Lane Fox is also the gardening correspondent of the Financial Times.

Thomas Spencer Jerome (1864–1914) was an American lawyer and a lover of Roman history who lived on Capri from 1899 until his death. In his will he endowed a series of lectures to be jointly administered by the University of Michigan and the American Academy in Rome, to be delivered at both institutions. The revised lectures are typically published by the University of Michigan Press.

All lectures will be given in English. The lectures on November 6 and 12 will be livestreamed at livestream.com/aarome.

Please note: a valid photo ID is required for entry into the American Academy in Rome. Backpacks and luggage with dimensions larger than 40 x 35 x 15 cm (16 x 14 x 6 in.) are not permitted on the property. There are no locker facilities available.

The Thomas Spencer Jerome Lectures Series is among the most prestigious international platforms for the presentation of new work on Roman history and culture. They are presented at both the American Academy in Rome and the University of Michigan. In 2018, the forty-fifth year of the lecture series, Robin Lane Fox, a noted scholar of ancient history, will discuss the natural world in pagan and Christian Rome.

The lectures will explore the differing approaches to the natural world by pagans and the early Christians, from Paul and the Gospels to circa 500 CE. They will bring out differing emphases in their respective writings and art and will ask what practical effects such different ways of seeing had on contemporary life.

Lecture I
November 6, 6:00pm
Villa Aurelia, American Academy in Rome
Largo di Porta San Pancrazio 1, Rome

Lecture II
November 8, 6:00pm
British School at Rome
Antonio Gramsci 61, Rome

Lecture III
November 12, 6:00pm
Lecture Room, American Academy in Rome
Via Angelo Masina 5, Rome

The first lecture, “Cosmos and Landscape,” will delve into pagan and Christian views of creation. It will also investigate the dominance of humankind over the beasts and the vegetal world, as well as modern theories of a shift from a horizontal view to a vertical perspective of the relation between the natural world and the divine, which Christianity endorsed. 

In the second lecture, “Animal and Vegetable,” Lane Fox will address the hierarchy and symbolism of animals and plants in pagan and Christian art. The impact of these views on both groups’ experience, including martyrs and Christian holy men in isolated settings, will be considered. (This lecture will be held at the British School at Rome.) 

The final lecture, “Signs and Catastrophes,” will reflect upon the previous two and compare omens and signs, prodigies and miracles, in pagan and Christian worldviews. A particular focus will be explanations of natural catastrophes, including volcanic and seismic disasters, which are still part of our world today. The lecture will conclude with reflections on the end of the world and the perverted natural symbols used to address it.

Robin Lane Fox is an ancient historian and gardening writer best known for his works on Alexander the Great. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford, and a reader in ancient history at the University of Oxford. A fellow and tutor in ancient history at New College from 1977 to 2014, Fox now serves as garden master and as extraordinary lecturer in ancient history for both New and Exeter Colleges. His major publications, for which he has won literary prizes, include studies of Alexander the Great and ancient Macedon, Christianity and Paganism, and the Greek Dark Ages. His most recent book, published in 2015, concerns the patristic author Augustine of Hippo. Lane Fox is also the gardening correspondent of the Financial Times.

Thomas Spencer Jerome (1864–1914) was an American lawyer and a lover of Roman history who lived on Capri from 1899 until his death. In his will he endowed a series of lectures to be jointly administered by the University of Michigan and the American Academy in Rome, to be delivered at both institutions. The revised lectures are typically published by the University of Michigan Press.

All lectures will be given in English. The lectures on November 6 and 12 will be livestreamed at livestream.com/aarome.

Please note: a valid photo ID is required for entry into the American Academy in Rome. Backpacks and luggage with dimensions larger than 40 x 35 x 15 cm (16 x 14 x 6 in.) are not permitted on the property. There are no locker facilities available.

Matera Imagined/Matera Immaginata
November 13–December 18, 2018
Opening: November 13, 2018, 6:30 PM
Italian Cultural Institute
686 Park Avenue, New York, NY

Organized by the American Academy in Rome, this exhibition highlights how photography has framed modern perceptions of Matera, a southern Italian town noted for its millennia-old cave dwellings. A palimpsest of history and traditions characteristic of Mediterranean culture, Matera in the twentieth century was transformed in the collective imagination from an ancient backwater at the edge of civilization to a cultural bellwether for the future of Europe. In the 1940s, following the publication of Italian author Carlo Levi’s best-selling memoir, Christ Stopped at Eboli, Matera became a symbol of southern Italian backwardness. Today, just over a generation later, Matera has emerged as a model of authenticity that will represent Europe as Capital of Culture in 2019.

The exhibition charts Matera’s recent evolution through photography. It highlights for the first time the town's constant allure for photographers around the globe, as well as their pivotal role in transforming what Levi termed Matera’s “tragic beauty” into a symbol of ageless, Mediterranean place. Like filmmakers Pierpaolo Pasolini or Mel Gibson, who used Matera as a surrogate for Jerusalem, the photographers who ventured to Matera observed in its cave dwellings signs of the origins of civilization. At the same time, as was true of New Deal era photography in the United States, photography in Matera in the postwar years played a decisive role in shaping public policy, land reform, and social change. More recently, Matera has inspired artists to explore through photography concepts ranging from memory and perception, to identity and cultural patrimony. Featuring works by some of the most celebrated photographers of their time, including Henri Cartier-Bresson, Esther Bubley, Luigi Ghirri, Emmet Gowin, David Seymour, and Carrie Mae Weems, the exhibition presents a new narrative about Matera’s ancient heritage.