ACADEMY (Gk. imaciiiurta, akadrmicia, or asadqpia,akademia). Originally the name of a public garden outside of Athens, dedicated to Athene and other deities, and containing a grove and a gymnasium. It was popularly believed to have derived its name from its early owner, a cer tain Academus, an eponymous hero of the Tro jan War. It was in these gardens that Plato met and taught his followers, and his school came to be known from their place of meeting as the Academy. The later schools of philosophy which developed from the teachings of Plato down to the time of Cicero were also known as academies. Cicero himself and many of the best authorities following him reckoned but two Academies, the Old, founded by Plato (428-348 Re.), and including Speusippus, Xenocrates of Chalcedon, Polemo, Crates, and Cranto; and the New, founded by Arcesilaus (241 or 240 u.c.). Others have, however, reckoned the latter as the Academy, and added a third. the New Academy, founded by Carneades (214-129? n.c). Others again have counted no fewer than five, adding to the three above a fourth, that of Philo, and a fifth, that of Antiochus. (See articles PLATO; ARCESILAUS: CARNEADES; PHILOSOPHY; and references under the last.) From its use in the sense of a school the word academy has come to be applied to certain kinds of institutions of learning; from its use in the sense of a body of learned men it has come to he applied to various associations of scholars, artists. literary men and scientists organized for the promotion of general or special intellectual or artistic interests. Not only was the name ap plied parti•ularly to the followers of Plato, but it soon came to be given as well to general societies of learned men unconnected with a philosophical school. In the Middle Ages the name and insti tution survived not merely among the Arabs, par ticularly in Spain, but, passing over the fable of Alfred's foundation of an academy at Oxford, we find such an institution under the name of aeademy among the group of scholars whom Charlemagne gathered around him.
At the Renaissance the academy sprang into sudden prominence as a favorite form of intellec tual organization, and took its place as an intel lectual force beside the universities. Front these it differed. as it does to-day, in being not a teach ing body but a group of investigators, who, generally under royal or state patronage, en couraged learning. literature, and art by research
and publication. Laying aside the claims of Alost to a society of scholars in 1107, and that of 'Nest to a society of poets in 1302. academies of this type seem to have first appeared in Italy and to have been devoted to literature, art, and archi te•ture. The Academy of Fine Arts, founded at Florenee about 1270 by Brunetto Latini; that of Palermo, about 1:300. by Frederick 11.; and the Academy of Architecture of Milan (138(1?) were among the first of these. Language and litera ture were not far behind. The so-called Academy of Floral Games (Aead(mie des Jeux Floraux), founded at Toulouse about 1323 by one Clemens isaurus as a part of the great Troubadour move ment, was probably the earliest of these literary academies, and has had an almost continuous history till the present day. With this exception the earliest academies rose in Italy, and found their prototype in that brilliant group of schol ars, critics, and literati gathered at the court of Lorenzo de' Medici, the Magnificent, and Cosmo de' Medici in Florence, the so-called Platonic Academy which, founded about 1474, was dissolved after the expulsion of the Medici in 1527. It was sueceeded in Florence by the Academy of blur emp, formed in 1540 especially for the study of Tuscan, particularly Petrar•h. llefifre the Pla tonic Academy of the Medici only Naples boasts an earlier academy, that founded in 144(1 by Al fonso. But the sixteenth century was rich in academies devoted to literature. The Introvati of Siena, 1525: the Infianunati of Padua, 1534; the Rozzi of Siena, later suppressed by Cosmo de' Medici, 15GS; and the Accademia dell t Crusca, or Fu•fu•ato•nm, founded in 1587, and still in existence, the most famous of them all, are perhaps the best known of that astonishing burst of academic vigor which produced in the sixteenth century in Italy a number variously estimated front 170 to 700 of this form of organ ization. in these, under curious names hut with common purpose, the Italian aristocracy espe barred front political interests by tyrants and republics alike, found vent for their activity.