Archival Research at the Archivio Societa Missionari d’Africa in Rome

Adi Meyerovitch is a third-year doctoral student in the history and theory of architecture. She studies nineteenth and twentieth centuries architecture with a focus on European-Ottoman cultural exchanges.

The generous support of the European Studies Council at the MacMillan Center allowed me to conduct archival research at the Archivio Societa Missionari d’Africa in Rome in the spring of 2023. This visit was invaluable for my preliminary dissertation research about the restoration and construction of the complex of the church of Saint Anne in Jerusalem in the second half of the nineteenth century. The archivist of the Missionari d’Africa, Fr. Marc Nsanzurwimo, kindly assisted me in navigating through the cataloged collections. I was particularly excited to see the original 1878 architectural drawings of the convent buildings in the Saint Anne complex and architect Christophe-Edouard Mauss’s correspondence. These materials allow me to begin answering several questions that are central to my research.