The US Capitol is one example of Roman-influenced architecture in the metro area.
Students in the university’s classics department will have more opportunities to study the impact of Rome on American architecture after the department received a $500,000 grant from the National Italian American Foundation on Jan. 13.
The Ernest L. Pellegri Grant will go toward funding new opportunities for paid study abroad trips to Italy, recruiting more top-tier high school students who have studied Latin, encouraging high school teachers to pursue master’s degrees in Latin and studying the influence of Roman traditions in the U.S.
Professor Jorge Bravo, who is in his second year of teaching at the university, authored the department’s proposal to the NIAF that beat out 24 other American and Italian university proposals.
“The way you think about the past affects what you’ll do in the future,” Bravo said, explaining the importance of the grant.
The grant will apportion $100,000 a year to the university for five years, starting in the fall. Roughly $400,000 of the total will be devoted to student scholarships, Bravo said.
Judith Hallett, a classics professor and co-director of the Pellegri Program at this university, said the proposal stood out because it focused on studying similarities between ancient structures in comparison to American ones, specifically in the nearby capital. Classics undergraduates and graduates alike have studied ancient Greek and Roman structures in comparison to Washington architecture, she said.
Because the Founding Fathers were so immersed in the thinking and the lessons of Greek and Roman philosophers, the buildings in Washington reflect those of their societies, she said.
“[The NIAF] said that they really liked that we were in proximity to Washington, that we had a track record of producing Latin teachers and that we were giving most of the grant money to scholarships,” said Lillian Doherty, this university’s Pellegri Program co-director and classics professor.
Landing this grant is significant for improving the university’s national rankings in classical studies, Bravo said. But his primary personal benefit, he said, is watching the program take off.
A graduate of Princeton University and the University of California, Berkeley, Bravo said he bounced around short-term teaching jobs before finding a home at this university.
“I’m a relatively new hire, so I’m just interested in seeing the program thrive,” he said. “I’m pretty excited. My long-term career path is here at Maryland.”
