Staying in the Palazzina, next to the Academy , built in the '30s by Eugenio Faludi (a Hungarian architect who settled in Italy), with a scholarship from the Hungarian government, allows one not only to immerse himself in Hungarian cultural life attentive of Italian culture, lived in a concentrated and intense way in the Academy, but also in the Italian cultural life tout court. To live as students on scholarship in the Palazzina means beginning the day with coffee in some bar in piazza Farnese or in Campo de' Fiori, then continue on (with bus number 64) towards the Vatican Library or the National Library in the opposite direction. The morning atmosphere of this very vivacious center of Rome gives an impulse to the activities that the Hungarian scholar intends to carry out during his stay in the "eternal city": the scholar dives into the richly- stocked libraries, the architect admires and studies the archeological finds and the museums, the artist visits the city and the galleries, the musician assits rehearsals and concerts, and so on. Rome offers a million possibilities to anyone.

The Academy of Hungary in Rome is in via Giulia 1, in the very precious Palazzo Falconieri. The building became the property of the Hungarian government during the period in which the political, cultural and economic relations between the two countries were very strong and intense. In 1927, a Hungarian delegation arrived in Rome with the precise intent to carry out the exchange of two buildings, with the objective of offering a State institution for the divulging of the respective cultures. From 1928,therefore, the Academy of Hungary has its seat in Rome, and the Italian Institute of Culture, in Budapest (via Bródy Sandor, 8). The Hungarians are in the Palazzo Falconieri, the beautiful Baroque building with the grand loggia, built by Borromini, from which an extraordinary panorama of the entire city is revealed. The Italians in Budapest have their seat in the building of the first Hungarian Parliament, built by Miklós Ybl in 1864, in a splendid eclectic, neo-Renaissance Italian style.

Apart from its activity of the divulgation of Hungarian culture, the Academy of Hungary in Rome also accomodates- since 1929- the Hungarian Historic Institute, which had already been founded in Rome in 1894 by Vilmos Fraknói, historian, canonist and promoter of Hungarian historical studies at the Vatican Archives, and which, after a long pause due to political reasons, once again becomes a member of the Scientific Academies of Rome, this year.

A list of names of the Hungarian scholars and artists who have stayed at the Academy could, by itself, give a pretty good idea of the scientific and cultural activities of this center.

He has only to think of a few important figures, even at an international level: the first director of the Academy was Tibor Gerevich, the historian of art, promoter of the official artistic Hungarian culture during the period between the two wars, who, in the "Római Iskola" (School of Rome), surrounded himself with many painters, sculptors, architects who were intent on following Italian art as a model-- for example: painters Vilmos Aba Novák, Pál Molnár C., Károly Patkó, István Szónyi, sculptors Pal Pátzay, Laszló Mészarós, architects Imre Papp, István Lauber, Jenó Faludi, Pal Forgó,etc.. This year, in the Spring, the Academy, in colaboration with the Italian Ministry of dedicated an exhibition to the artists of this circle in the new expository space of the Ministry in San Michele. Among the scholars, we find figures such as the excellent expert of Greek mythology, Károly Kerényi, philosopher György Lukacs, writer and literary man Antal Szerb, poet Sándor Weöres, musician Zoltán Kodály and many others not less important for Hungarian culture and for schientific-cultural relations between the two countries.

After the second World War, during the cold war period, Italy and Hungary couldn't cultivate what had become habitual relations and although the Academy of Hungary in Rome organized cultural manifestations and gave hospitality to Hungarian students on scholarships, it remained cut off from the cultural and scientific life of Rome. From 1989, it has gained a certain autonomy (since 1981 it is under the authority of the Hungarian Ministry of Culture) and it is once againdirected towards inserting Hungarian culture in the vast and varied cultural life of Italy, offering - through conventions, conferences, discussions, exhibitions, concerts, films and other manifestations - a new possibility fokr Italians to get to know the Hungarian people. Furthermore, the Academy continues to give hospitality to Hungarian scholarship holders (scholars and artists) in the Palazzina to give them the opportunity to do research, to get acquainted with the art, to form relationships in the different areas of culture and science.