The American Academy in Rome will host a seminar and concert honoring the life and work of the archaeologist Malcolm (“Mac”) Bell III, who died in January of this year. A 1970 Rome Prize Fellow, a 1989 Resident, and Professor-in-Charge of the School of Classical Studies from 1990 to 1996, Bell made extensive contributions to the Academy and beyond. Papers presented today will celebrate the range of his impact: from his time as humanities professor at AAR, to his longtime direction of the excavations of Morgantina on Sicily, to his historic work repatriating looted artifacts and negotiating a bilateral agreement between Italy and the United States aimed at curtailing illegal trade in Italian antiquities.
A cello concert by Malcolm Bell’s son, Raphael Bell, will follow the seminar. Raphael Bell is the leader of the cello section at the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, co–artistic director of La Loingtaine in Montigny-sur-Loing, cofounder of the Camerata Fontainebleau, and founder and co–artistic director of the Charlottesville Chamber Music Festival in his Virginia hometown.