founded in Rome in 1829, still had an international character. Its inspirer had
been the then young Edward Gerhard (1795–1867), who aimed to promote
international cooperation in the study of Italian antiquity and archaeology,
and to, as the statutes proclaimed,
gather and make known all archaeologically signiWcant facts andWnds—that is, from
architecture, sculpture and painting, topography, and epigraphy—that are brought to
light in the realm of classical antiquity, in order that these may be saved from being
lost, and by means of concentration in one place may be made accessible for scientiWc
study
(in Marchand 1996a: 55).Membership of the institute was composed mainly of Italian, French, and
German scholars (Marchand 1996a: 56). It subsidizedWeldwork and gave
grants, published its own journal, theAnali dell’Istituto, and printed other
specialized studies (Gran-Aymerich 1998: 52–5). Yet, despite its international
status, scholars from diVerent nationalities received unequal treatment. The
reason for this was that the funding mainly came from a single source—the
Prussian state, a benevolence consciously linked to the institute’s diplomatic
function for the German country (Marchand 1996a: 41, 58–9). It should not,
therefore, come as a surprise that after the uniWcation of Germany, the Istituto
di Corrispondenza Archaeologica became an oYcial Prussian state institution
in 1871, and was transformed into the German Archaeological Institute soon
after, the Rome house being converted into one of its branches. In 1874 it was
promoted to a Reichinstitut (an imperial institute) (Deichmann 1986; Mar-
chand 1996a: 59, 92). Despite this, the oYcial language of the institute would
remain Italian until the 1880s (Marchand 1996a: 101).
The Istituto di Corrispondenza Archaeologica also organized foreign
archaeology in Greece. However, those individuals subsidized to study Greek
antiquities were, perhaps not surprisingly, of German origin (Gran-Aymerich
1998: 182). Despite this, scholars from Britain and France also travelled to
independent Greece, undertaking projects such as the architectural studies
of the Acropolis in the 1840s. After this, the protagonism went to the
French, especially after the opening in 1846 of the French School in Athens
(E ́tienne & E ́tienne 1992: 92–3; Gran-Aymerich 1998: 121, 146, 179). The
School undertook further works on the Acropolis and, mainly during the
1850s, supported expeditions to several archaeological sites including Olym-
pia and Thasos by archaeologists such as Le ́on Huzey (1831–1922) and
Georges Perrot (1832–1914). Meanwhile, German researchers focused on ana-
lysing sculpture and producing a corpus of Greek inscriptions (E ́tienne &
E ́tienne 1992: 98; Gran-Aymerich 1998: 147–8). SigniWcantly, the ideal of an
international school was not pursued here. The French School in Athens would
102 Archaeology of Informal Imperialism