As far as we can now tell, the Academy was founded in around 573 BC.
Certainly it can be shown to exist by the year 571 BC, when we learn
from the journal of Degabus of Malme that:

  An groupe of scholars have late taken residence in the city, purposeing 
  here to study both the ancient and the modern mysteries. They have for 
  a year or more taken rooms with Mrs. Feon of Kingdom Street, who 
  complains mightily of the noxious stink emanating from their alchymical 
  experimentations, but I hear they have in mind to remove to the cellars 
  late of Mr. Beston Brewer so recently passed away. 

Academy scholars will naturally be familiar with the Beston rooms. These
are unlikely to be the original cellars once occupied by that scholarly 
fellowship but do seem to be in roughly the right location later the 
same year. Degabus notes a behavior pattern that might be familiar 
to the more junior members of the academy:

  The scholares of Beston Cellars may rightly be called the natural 
  inheritors of those brewing rooms; for I observed this night in 
  Thilke Market as I returned home, after dining with Mrs. Haarten, 
  a supposed scholar whom I identified by his cap drunken and reeling 
  in the street. I made as to pass by him swiftly but he being jovial 
  in his cups called out: "Hi Sir, would you pass by a scholar without 
  raising your arm?" Quoth I: "I see no scholar here, Sir, unless it be 
  a scholar of the sweetened sleep." Quoth he: "Sir, think you that viti 
  culture is no subject for study?" Quoth I: "Sir, do not call your 
  pursuit study, for the more you study in this fashion the duller your 
  mind becomes." I think I may consider myself the match in wit for
  any a scholar called by some academicians.

Despite the continuing disapproval of the townsfolk, the Academy remained.
It grew in size, taking on additional rooms in the area of those original 
stone cellars, and offering a tuition service to the sons and daughters of 
wealthy townsfolk as a way of funding its continuing research. No scholars 
of note were yet resident in the academy, although Varkin writes that she 
passed through on her way north and comments that she enjoyed an excellent 
dinner though the tables of this Academy be fine indeed the discourse 
of its scholars is finer yet.

The Academy's first significant expansion came in 452 BC with a gift from
Naskent Taversen. Taversen, one of the city's wealthiest and most influential 
land owners, had been fascinated by the studies of the academy. He had sent 
his only daughter Aetiant to be educated by the scholars and is known to have 
observed some of Macelvoy's early experiments with static electricity. Aetiant 
Taversen became a scholar at the Academy and apparently negotiated with her 
father the substantial gift he gave the institution his last years. Taversen 
gifted his house along with various surrounding pieces of property to the 
Academy in perpetuity. With this, his bequest, the Academy was able to shore 
up its financial situation which until then had been uncertain at best. The 
patronage of Naskent Taversen also brought the academy to the attention of 
many other wealthy and important people across the country when in 443 BC 
Aetiant Taversen was elected by the other fellows of the Academy to become 
its first master. She was able to preside over an unprecedented period of 
growth and success in which for the first time the Academy was able to 
select its pupils.