Abstract:
The Rome Prize of the German Academy Villa Massimo is by far the most
important award for German artists. It is awarded to renowned artists from the
fields of fine arts, composition, literature, and architecture. Despite the award’s significant status, its position in the German literary and cultural-political system and
the selection policy on which it is based remains largely under-researched. This
article examines institutional and personal networks of the Rome Prize, the objectives of the respective actors and the mechanisms of selection. The major aim of the
study is to analyse archival material on writers who have received grants. The period of investigation begins in 1957 and ends in 1974 with the institutional reorganization of the Villa Massimo.
