MASON HAMMOND ’25

Mason Hammond ’25, a classics professor and former House master who recovered stolen art during World War II, died Sunday. He was 99.

Hammond, who was the Pope professor of latin language and literature emeritus, first came to Harvard as an undergraduate in 1921.

His lengthy list of distinctions includes a Rhodes Scholarship and an honorary Doctor of Laws degree, presented to Hammond by former University President Neil L. Rudenstine in 1994.

“He considered receiving an honorary award his crowning achievement,” said his daughter, Anstiss Hammond Krueck.

“He truly was a son of Harvard.”

From 1942 to 1946, Hammond traveled through Sicily, Italy and Germany as a Monument, Fine Art and Archives Officer.

For his work recovering art that had been stolen by the Nazis, Hammond received the French Legion of Honor Award and was honored by the Italian and the Dutch governments.

After World War II, Hammond’s love of the classics led him to head the School of Classical Study at the American Academy in Rome. He twice served as the director of Harvard’s Villa I Tatti in Florence, the University’s center for renaissance studies.

Hammond’s scholarly resume boasts an impressive list of works ranging from Aeneas to Augustus: A Beginning Latin Reader for College Students, 2nd Edition to Miles Gloriosus to The City in the Ancient World.

He particularly enjoyed translating the works of Plautus, a comedic Roman playwright.

“He was by nature a historian, a pure scholar,” Krueck said.

Hammond served as master of Kirkland House from 1945-55 and was Lowell House’s first senior tutor, his daughter said.

Thomas Buckley ’49, a former Kirkland House resident who Hammond tutored, said he remembers the weekly teas Hammond held with his wife, Florence Pierson Hammond.

“He and my mother were a fantastic team,” Hammond’s daughter Krueck said. Hammond continued the weekly teas for two decades following his 1959 move to 153 Brattle St.

“He was not just a dry and shriveled scholar; he enjoyed the company of his fellow men very much,” Krueck said.