Annual Report 2007-8 - The British School at Rome

D EVELOPMENTThanks largely to the School’s new benefactors, Johnand Virginia Murray (via the John R. MurrayCharitable Trust), a new partnership has been formed withSir John Soane’s Museum. The Director and Director ofDevelopment of the Museum responded very positively toa BSR proposal for the Museum to host the BSRexhibition of the Mackey collection of late nineteenthcenturyphotographs of Rome held in the Archive. Thisexhibition was shown in Rome in January 2005, and nowthe Librarian has worked on a more ambitious plan tobring the exhibition to London in the summer of 2009.The title is: Images from the Past: Rome in the Photographs ofFather Peter Paul Mackey, 1890–1901. There is a naturalsynergy between the Museum and the BSR as a result oftheir respective interest in and focus on Italy and theclassics, as well as a mutual scholarly approach to collectionand exhibition. It is hoped that a reciprocal arrangement —with Soane Museum activity in Rome — will emerge in duecourse. Unable themselves to fund this particular project,the Murrays generously held a fundraising reception in Juneboth to promote the idea of this show and to celebrate analliance between two institutions that they support. Now,fundraising for the costs of a catalogue to accompany theexhibition in London is under way.Another of the School’s donors, Di Bresciani, who fundsthe Youth Music Foundation of Australia Scholarship, puton a celebratory dinner with the Chair of Development, inhonour of the BSR, during the latter’s visit to Melbourne inApril. The latest YMFA Scholar, Stefan Cassomenos, playedto the audience and toasts to the BSR, its Director and itsfuture were raised from a crowd of supporters.In addition to these events, the School’s UK outreachactivity continued throughout the year with three wellattendedlectures, culminating in a tour de force from theDirector on Herculaneum: new light in the dark, including theviewing of scenes from the new film of Marcellino deBaggis, Herculaneum: Diaries of Light and Dark. Theimportance of keeping up these links with friends andalumni of the School is well understood. An illustrationof the enduring warmth that former relationships inRome can lead to came this year when, out of the blue,we learnt that William T.C. Walker, a Rome Scholar inArchitecture 1937–9 and member of the Faculty ofArchitecture in 1951, had generously bequeathed over£25,000 to the School ‘to further the study of Classicalor Renaissance architecture in Rome at the BritishSchool’.Our thanks, as always, go to the London office of theSchool — in particular Sarah Ciacci, who has now started anew career but who worked hard on our UK outreachprogramme —, to Elly Murkett and Alvise Di Giulio inRome, as well as to our group of volunteers who alwaysprovide invaluable back-up for our UK events.Jill PellewChair of DevelopmentDonorsDonors to the BSR in 2007–8 include: Arup Italia; theComune di Brindisi; the British Council; Mr P.W.H. Brown;Buro Happold; the Faculty of Classics, Cambridge; theCochemé Charitable Trust; the John S. Cohen Foundation;Lady Egerton; the Getty Foundation; the GladstoneMemorial Trust; the Bryan Guinness Charitable Trust;Knauf Italia; Dr Jane Larner and family; the Marc FitchFund; the Regione Lazio; the Craven Committee, Oxford;St John’s College, Oxford; PARC (Direzione Generale perla Qualità e la Tutela del Paesaggio, l’Architettura e l’ArteContemporanea); the Packard Humanities Institute; theSociety of Dilettanti; the Society for the Promotion ofRoman Studies; the Swedish Embassy in Rome; MsVanessa Somers Vreeland; the late Mr W.T.C. Walker.14