Biography
Frank Salmon is an Associate Professor of the History of Art, a Fellow and former President of St John's College, and the Director of the Ax:son Johnson Centre for the Study of Classical Architecture in the Faculty of Architecture and History of Art, in association with the Faculty of Classics. He is an architectural historian for whom a central interest has been archaeological discoveries relating to Roman and Greek architecture in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the impact of those discoveries on neo-classical architecture in Britain, Europe and America. His book Building on Ruins: The Rediscovery of Rome and English Architecture (2000) won two prizes. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and represents the Society as a Trustee of Sir John Soane's Museum.
Research
Among a number of research projects relating to classical architecture in general, Frank Salmon has an ongoing interest in the Greek Revival in Britain, particularly in the relatively understudied period of archaeological discovery c.1790-1830 when the third, fourth and fifth volumes of The Antiquities of Athens appeared, alongside a number of other significant publications. Recent presentations relating to this interest are:
‘Everyday Temples: Greek Architecture’s Enduring Legacy’, The Ian Jenkins Memorial Lecture at the British Museum, London [27 October 2022]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weAdnVYCVQc&list=PLHcErFdjbqlyXKHov2rA0oKA2Y52N4FOJ&index=2
‘The Erechtheion: An Overlooked Paradigm of the Greek Revival?’, Cambridge Centre for Greek Studies [20 April 2021]
Publications
Selected publications (above all those relating to the reception of classical architecture):
‘The Ideal and the Real in British Hellenomania, 1751-1851’, in K. Harloe, N. Momigliano and A. Farnoux (eds.), Hellenomania (Routledge, London, 2018), pp. 73-99
‘James “Athenian” Stuart and the Geometry of Setting Out’, co-authored essay with David Yeomans and Jason Kelly, in Anthony Gerbino (ed.), Geometrical Objects: Architecture and the Mathematical Sciences 1400-1800 (Springer, Cham, Heidelberg, New York, Dordrecht and London), 2014, pp. 281-312
‘The Forgotten Athenian: Drawings by Willey Reveley’, in Windows on that World: Essays on British Art Presented to Brian Allen (printed by Yale University Press for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, London), 2012, pp. 143-81
‘C.R. Cockerell and the Discovery of Entasis in the Columns of the Parthenon’, in F. Salmon (ed.), The Persistence of the Classical: Essays on Architecture Presented to David Watkin (Philip Wilson Publishers, London 2008), pp. 106-23
The Antiquities of Athens, Measured and Delineated by James Stuart and Nicholas Revett, Painters and Architects [1762/3-1794], facsimile edition (Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 2008), with scholarly introduction by Frank Salmon pp. v-xvii
‘Stuart as Antiquary and Archaeologist in Italy and Greece’, 30,000-word essay in James ‘Athenian’ Stuart (1713-1788): The Rediscovery of Antiquity (Yale University Press, for the Bard Center, New York), 2006, pp. 102-145
‘Perspectival Restoration Drawings in Roman Archaeology and Architectural History’, The Antiquaries’ Journal, Vol. 83, 2003, pp. 397-424
Building on Ruins: The Rediscovery of Rome and English Architecture, Ashgate Publishing Limited, Aldershot, 2000
‘The Impact of the Archaeology of Rome on British Architects and their Work, c. 1750-1840’, in C. Hornsby (ed.), The Impact of Italy: The Grand Tour and Beyond, The British School at Rome, London, 2000, pp. 219-43
‘“Storming the Campo Vaccino”: British Architects and the Antique Buildings of Rome after Waterloo’, Architectural History, Vol. 38, 1995, pp. 146-175
‘Charles Cameron and Nero's Domus Aurea: “una piccola esplorazione”’, Architectural History, Vol. 36, 1993, pp. 69-93
