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A Man of Many Parts: The Life and Legacy of Francis Willey Kelsey

Home » Educator » Professor in Italy (1900–1901)

PROFESSOR IN ITALY (1900-1901)

Following the appearance of Pompeii: Its Life and Art, Kelsey's appointment as professor at the American School of Classical Studies in Rome came as no surprise. Courses at the School were taught by the two resident American professors (the other was the director, Richard Norton), assisted by Italian colleagues of whom August Mau was one. Mau lectured on Pompeii, Kelsey on Roman archaeology and history, Norton on Roman art.

One highlight of Kelsey's year was a springtime visit to Greece. The party made two tours away from Athens to archaeological sites. The first visited important Peloponnesian sites—Olympia and Mycenae, among others. The second went north to Delphi, Thermopylae, and the Vale of Tempe. In Athens the group studied the Acropolis, the Theseum, and the Temple of Zeus, visited museums, and made excursions to adjacent sites such as Marathon and the quarries on Mt. Pentelikon. Returning to Rome, they stopped at Pompeii, where Mau conducted a weeklong seminar. This whole trip reinforces our sense of Kelsey's organizational skills, his capacity for leadership, his enthusiasm for antiquity, and his rapport with the students.

Back in Rome Kelsey led student trips to sites nearby like Tivoli and Veii, as well as working on projects in the Roman Forum. He then left for Pompeii, where he and Mau were putting the finishing touches to the second edition of Pompeii: Its Life and Art. The family returned to New York at the end of August, saluted as they left Naples by Mau and his wife.

These guidebooks, maps, and notebook give a vivid idea of Kelsey's year as professor at the American School of Classical Studies in Rome, which later joined with the School of Architecture and Fine Arts to form the American Academy in Rome.