Roman academies
Roman academies were associations of learned individuals, rather than institutes for instruction. They were connected with larger educational structures conceived during and after the Italian Renaissance, at the height of which the two main intellectual centers were Florence and Rome. Scientific, literary, and artistic culture developed, with the earlier Roman and Florentine academies as examples.
History
The Renaissance
Bessarion's circle
academies in Rome and Florence aimed to reproduce the traditions of Plato's Academy, promoting the cultivation of philosophy in the Ancient Greek sense of "love of wisdom" characterized by Renaissance Platonism and neoplatonism. was The home of Cardinal and Byzantine Greek exile Basilios Bessarion, one of several meeting places for scholarly events and discussion, was known as an academia. Bessarion's extensive library, which he bequeathed to the city of Venice, was at the disposal of his many houseguests. His visitors included learned Greek refugees whom he supported by commissioning transcripts of Greek manuscripts and translations into Latin to make Greek scholarship available to Western Europeans.Pomponio's ''Accademia Romana''
Another circle of humanists has become known as the "Roman Academy" of Pomponio. A thrifty humanist scholar who refused the customary patronage of rich cardinals, Pomponio Leto hosted a circle of friends who shared pagan-influenced humanism which was becoming characteristic of Renaissance Rome and elsewhere. Born in Teggiano in 1425 as Giulio Sanseverino, son of a Sanseverino nobleman, Pomponio devoted his energies in Rome to the study of classical antiquity and became the centre of a group of like-minded friends. Each assumed a classical name; his was Julius Pomponius Laetus, or Laetus. Prominent members were humanists with neo-pagan, epicurean interests, such as Bartolomeo Platina and Filippo Buonaccorsi. Rome was rife with political intrigue fomented by Roman barons and neighbouring princes, and Paul II arrested Pomponio and Academy leaders for irreligion, immorality, and conspiring against the pope. The prisoners were tortured, but eventually released.16th and 17th centuries
The 16th-century region of Rome had many generally short-lived literary and aesthetic circles inspired by the Renaissance. They included Siena's theatrical Accademia degli Intronati; the 1530 Academy of the vignaiuoli ; the Academy della virtù, founded by Claudio Tolomei under the patronage of Ippolito de' Medici, and Academies of the intrepidi, the animosi and the illuminati. The Academy of Notti Vaticane was founded by Charles Borromeo.Seventeenth-century academies included the Accademia degli Umoristi, the Fantastici and the Ordinati, founded by Cardinal Dati and Giulio Strozzi. The academies of the Infecondi, the Occulti, the Deboli, the Aborigini, the Immobili, the Accademia Esquilina, and others were founded near the turn of the 18th century. The newer academies were public bodies, modeled on the French Academy founded by Cardinal Richelieu.