The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies, or Roman Society, was founded in London in 1911, and is still active today, with the aim of promoting “the study of the history, archaeology, and art of Italy and the Roman Empire, from the earliest times down to about A.D. 700.” Central to their mission was the creation of an image library consisting of “photographs, lantern slides, and other materials for study.”

The British School at Rome is the only repository of the Roman Society Collection, consisting of over 4,600 objects including lantern slides, glass and film negatives, photographic prints on index cards, and lecture booklets. The earliest images in the Roman Society Collection can be dated to the 1890s and were likely taken during the excavations of the Roman Forum, carried out by the renowned Italian archaeologist Giacomo Boni. The collection of lantern slides rapidly expanded in the 1920s and 30s to include images of ancient Roman architecture and art across Italy, Europe, and North Africa. Ancient Roman roads, walls, gates, ports, cities, landscapes, ruins, architecture, mosaics, and sculptures are also the subject of many lantern slides. Primarily documentary in nature, these photographs are valuable records of early excavations and archaeological sites, and often provide the only evidence of buildings and artifacts that have since been destroyed, reconstructed, or displaced from their original contexts. Prominent British archaeologists, classicists, and historians such as John Linton Myres, Jocelyn Toynbee, and Thomas Ashby (many of whom were also were members of the BSR) greatly contributed to the creation of the Roman Society lantern slide collection, often taking or commissioning photographs during their research and travels.