Description

Whether it was the result of a conversation in an Athenian salon, an official tour of the Acropolis, a suggestion from a former member of the Morea Expedition or the discomfort of a French scholar in an Athens school, or even all four at once, the fate of the French School at Athens is intricately entwined with the history of the city of Athens and Athenian society as a whole. The connection is rich and mutually beneficial as the French School has played a role in the city's urban and social history, and the city has been a place of learning and a subject matter for the academic community that has established itself there. Through this two-way relationship, the School has built a unique, but not very well-known, history with its host city. By establishing itself in the capital city of the new State, the French School did not just set up shop in the "homeland of art and literature" as dreamt of by all philologists: it laid down roots in a land where the members discovered a living, spoken Greek language, an original and unexpected Antiquity and people who were both heirs to a prestigious past and actors in an unpredictable present. This is why it is no exaggeration to say that, for many members, the city of Athens was their first "school" in Greece.