Monday 7 April: American Academy in Rome

Up early, shaved, showered, and dressed to present my credentials at the American Academy in Rome in order to get a reader’s card to use their library. I even wore a dress shirt, slacks, a jacket and tie, and hard shoes! Shirley would have been proud. The pants were a mistake though; try wearing slick gabardine on a plastic bus seat as you wind around the sharp turns going up the Gianicolo. I nearly ended up on the floor. The AAR is in a magnificent century-old palazzo designed in true Italian style by McKim, Mead and White. There’s a nice collection of ancient marble, including many Roman inscriptions set into the walls of the beautiful courtyard. I’ll have to get some pics later. The library was just renovated (it’s in the recent American Libraries) and is a gorgeous facility, and the collection of course is first-rate for my research. I immediately found some stuff that got me on a line of research about Augustus’ use of the symbols associated with the major colleges of official state priests, both to legitimize the imperial succession and to reinforce the social hierarchy (can you say “prosopographic sacerdotal iconography” three times, really fast?). I celebrated that evening with tiramisù, which was completely covered with roasted espresso beans. No wonder I didn’t sleep so well.