Academia Belgica, centre for history, arts and sciences in Rome
The Academia Belgica is a public utility foundation that hosts Belgian researchers and artists who come to Rome to pursue their work. It organises scientific and cultural activities at an international level and is a unique space for research, creation and collaboration.
The Art Deco building, which opened in 1939 in an elegant area on the edge of Villa Borghese park, is the work of architects Gino Cipriani and Jean Hendrickx (the designer of our old Gare du Nord). Luxurious in appearance with its green and black Belgian marble, the Academia hosts study assignments in its workrooms and residents' areas. It also houses a library containing some 80,000 volumes and archives, which are supplied by leading experts.
Since it opened, it has enabled many generations of artists and scholars to further their studies in Rome and contribute, through a number of publications, to the progress of the arts and historical and philological sciences. The Academia has also been involved in archaeological research at the colony of Alba Fucens in Abruzzo (rediscovered in 1949 thanks to a 30-year archaeological excavation campaign by a group of Belgian experts) and at Ordona in Puglia, through the work of Professor Joseph Mertens of the University of Louvain (UCL).
An institution that promises cultural relations between Italy and Belgium.