A Collection for Learning Archaeology: The Case of the École française de Rome in the Late Nineteenth Century

Tomassini, Paolo
(2026) Object Lessons: Knowledge Organization and Antiquity in Institutional Teaching Collections across the Long Nineteenth Century (1750–1940) — Location: Rome (8.April.2026)

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The archaeological collection of the École française de Rome emerged in the 1870s under the impetus of its first director, Auguste Geffroy, with a distinctive ambition: to establish a musée des études—a “museum for study”—within the Palazzo Farnese in Rome, conceived as a practical training tool for the institution’s young researchers. This initiative was part of a broader European movement for reform in higher education, in which the direct study of archaeological objects was becoming a central pedagogical element. Assembled primarily between 1875 and 1881, the collection consists of an eclectic array of objects acquired on the Roman antiquities market, recovered through excavations led by members of the École, or donated by collectors and scholars. These artefacts span a broad chronological range, from the Etruscan Archaic period to the Late Roman Empire, and represent a great diversity of materials: terracotta, ceramics, bronzes, glass, stone, wall painting fragments, and everyday items. Geffroy’s initiative resonates with contemporary debates surrounding the teaching of archaeology in France and Europe at the end of the nineteenth century. This talk will illustrate how the collection, assembled within a research institution, reflects a new ambition to study Antiquity not only through texts, but through materials and forms—by engaging directly with the physical traces of the past.
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Tomassini, P. (2026, April). A Collection for Learning Archaeology: The Case of the École française de Rome in the Late Nineteenth Century. Object Lessons: Knowledge Organization and Antiquity in Institutional Teaching Collections across the Long Nineteenth Century (1750–1940), Rome. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/278313