The first foreign academy in Rome, l'Académie de France, was founded in 1666 by Louis XIV's minister Colbert to promote the study of art, and has been lodged since Napoleon in the Villa Medici. The movement to create national institutions to promote research belongs to the second half of the nineteenth century, in the context of the creation of Rome as capital city of the new nation state, and the boom in archaeological discoveries that came with Rome's expansion. The German (initially Prussian) Archaeological Institute was founded in 1871 on the basis on an earlier international centre (from 1829); the Ecole Française from 1873 offered a base for French research in addition to the centre for artists at the Villa Medici. The model was followed by Austria (1881), the USA (1894), Hungary (1894), Britain (1901), Holland (1904), Spain (1910), Sweden (1925), Poland (1927), Romania (1931), Belgium (1939), Finland (1954), Denmark (1956) and Canada (1978). The International Union of Institutes of Archaeology, History and History of Art, itself founded after WWII (1946) to promote international cooperation between the institutes, currently numbers (in addition to 10 Italian institutes), numbers 23 institutes from 18 different countries.

The proposal for establishing a research centre in Rome for British scholars came in 1898 from a group of classical scholars led by Henry Pelham, Professor of Ancient History at Oxford University, who wished to establish 'some simple form of organisation for the assistance of British Students in Rome'. From the first they insisted that the focus of the School should not be limited to Classical Archaeology, but that it should be 'in the most comprehensive sense, a School of Roman and Italian Studies. Every period of the language and literature, antiquities, art, and history of Rome and Italy shall be considered as coming within the province of the School.'

This broad vision was realized above all by the work of Thomas Ashby (Director, 1906-1925). Already as a student he has played a crucial role in persuading senior scholars to launch the project. As Director, he not only set a model of research with his pioneering studies of the Roman Campagna, but encouraged as wide a range as possible of students to use the School's facilities, including artists from the Royal Academy and architects from the Royal Institute of British Architects.

Discussions were in progress with those bodies to found a broader institution with responsibility for art and architecture when a new opportunity was created by the International Exhibition in Rome of 1911. The Valle Giulia, formerly the park of the Villa of Pope Julius II, was assigned as site for the foreign pavilions, and Sir Edwin Lutyens was invited to design the British pavilion, to be based on the upper order of St Paul's Cathedral in London. The building was considered a great success, and the Mayor of Rome, Ernesto Nathan, on the urging of the British Ambassador, Sir Rennell Rodd, granted the site in perpetuity to the English Nation on condition it be used exclusively as a British School for Archaeology, History and the Fine Arts. A Royal Charter of Incorporation was granted in 1912, giving the institution its new constitution (this was revised by the <Supplementary Charter> of 1996). A sponsor emerged in the Commissioners for the Exhibition of 1851, who funded the construction of a new building and scholarships in the arts and architecture. By 1916 the building was partially complete, and the School transferred from its old seat in the Palazzo Odescalchi.

The Great War both interrupted the activities of the School and compromised the plans for its building. It was not until 1924 that the dining hall ('Common Room'), originally projected by Lutyens, was built by Harold Chalton Bradshaw, the first Rome Scholar in Architecture. The garden in the central courtyard was designed in 1926 by architecture scholar Marshall Sissons, around a fountain designed by John Skeaping, Rome Scholar in Sculpture (then husband of Barbara Hepworth).The east wing was finally completed in 1938, so that it was not until the eve of another world war that Lutyens design could be said to be complete. Thereafter, the only significant addition was an underground extension for the Library, completed in 1963, until the major newnew building programme of recent years (Centenary Building Projects).

In a century of activity, under a succession of Directors and their Assistants, the British School has been host to an extraordinary range of scholars in the Humanities and the Fine Arts. It has pursued numerous projects, especially in Archaeology, and organized a regular stream of conferences and lectures, reflected in its output of publications, both through the annual Papers of the British School at Rome and through its series of monographs. It has organized numerous exhibitions, both by its own Fine Arts scholars, and by invited artists in the Contemporary Arts Programme. It maintains a specialist Library, as well as an important historical and photographic Archive, which also organized exhibitions.