The British School at Rome 's Library and Archive reopened nearly a year ago on the completion of major building work which has transformed the BSR by providing new facilities, a Lecture Theatre and Gallery, as well as an extension to the Library. It is, therefore a great pleasure for us to inaugurate, with this first event, a series of exhibitions on the theme of 'Images and Memory' illustrating Italy in the late nineteenth century through images from the historic photographic collections held in the Archive which have never been seen before.

This exhibition includes a selection of photographs of Rome taken between 1890 and 1901 by the English Domenican Father Peter Paul Mackey who frequented the BSR Library and whose life's work was dedicated to the Leonine edition of the works of St. Thomas Aquinas and whose interests included archaeology and photography.

Born in Erdington , England in 1851 he graduated in law and completed his theological studies in Louvain . In 1881 he arrived in Rome to work on the exegesis of St. Thomas Aquinas's texts and, fascinated by Roman ruins, he began to attended the meetings and participated in the group excursions to the Roman Campagna organized by members of the British and American Archaeological Society founded by John Henry Parker.

Thomas Ashby, Director of the British School at Rome from 1901 to 1925, and the two sisters Dora and Agnes Bulwer were also members and also photographers and it is thanks to their meeting through the Society that gradually their collections ended up in the British School and today form the nucleus of the Archive's historic photographic collections. A set of the John Henry Parker collection of approximately 3300 prints were left us through the Library of the British and American Archaeological Society.

The 70 new black and white prints (30 x 40 cm), reproduced from the originals by Elio and Stefano Ciol, will be exhibited in the British School at Rome , Via A.Gramsci 61, in the new Gallery and Foyer of the Lecture Theatre. The inauguration will be held 13 January 2005, 6,00 pm and the exhibition will be open to the public from 14 January - 6 February, Monday - Friday: 9,00 - 13,00 and 14,00 - 17,00; Saturday - Sunday: 10,00 - 13,00.

The images, which have never been published or seen before, offer a portrait of the city of Rome at the end of the 19th century, surrounded by and immersed in the countryside, with vineyards and fields of artichokes next to the Roman ruins, a landscape that is more rural than urban with demolition and new building work in progress. Although only 100 years separates us from the world described in these photographs and that in which we live today, such profound changes have taken place that it is impossible today to appreciate the extraordinary beauty in the juxtaposition of landscape and ancient ruins.

This event, organised and curated by the Archive and Library staff of The British School at Rome, has been made possible thanks to funding from the Linbury Trust of Lord and Lady Sainsbury of Preston Candover.