A SYMBIOTIC RELATIONSHIP: Collecting and the History of Italian Photography

Author(s): Carlo Bertelli

Source: Aperture , SUMMER 1993, No. 132, IMMAGINI ITALIANE (SUMMER 1993), pp. 70-
71
Published by: Aperture Foundation, Inc.

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/24471682

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 successors were equally open to photogra

PEOPLE AND IDEAS phy: one ceiling in the Musei Vaticani intro
duces what is perhaps the first representa
tion of a photographic camera made in
fresco, painted by commission under Pope
A SYMBIOTIC RELATIONSHIP: Leo XIII.
During this fin-de-siecle period, Rome
Collecting and the History of Italian Photographywas unquestionably the most cosmopolitan
city in Italy. Nearly all the civilized states
had their representatives there. Pilgrims,
Bertelli
By Carlo Bertelli sightseers, and adventurers also came flock
ing to Rome, which was the inevitable goal
of the Grand Tour. Tourism is, of course, a
romanisti,
In 1961 a short survey of the history ofor devotees of Roman curiosities highly visual experience and, since the ad
and history. In 1956 a distinguished
Italian photography, compiled by Lamberto vent of the camera, tourists have been hun
romanista,
Vitali, appeared as an appendix to the Ital Silvio Negro, wrote a fascinat gry for photographs. Furthermore, it seems
ing book
ian translation of Peter Pollack's History of on the "Fourth Rome," which that there was no event in Rome, no trace of
Photography from Antiquity to Today. An the Republican urbs in the impe
examined her past, that did not seem photogenic to
rial book
appendix was necessary, as Pollack's city, the papal metropolis. His book,
entitled
scarcely gave mention of what had hap Quarta Roma, was the product of
a lifetime
pened in Italian photography since the first of work. Informative and bril There could not be a
liant,
daguerreotypes were made, as early as 1839. it managed to gather the minutest
In his book The Rare Art, Joseph details
Alsopof Roman daily life from a variety of history of art without art
makes the point that there could notangles,
be giving
a a lively picture of a period of collecting. The evolution
transition.
history of art without art collecting. The Negro rediscovered a number of
photographers
evolution of Italian historiography bears active in Rome from the of Italian historiography
this statement out: a number of historians
early 1900s and includes in the book par bears this out.
ticulars
were also collectors of the objects of theirof their day-to-day lives, as well as
research. Vitali, for example, collected imagesnotby these pioneers. (Negro was not
only photographs, but also art and the only romanista who was both a collec someone—even the trenches and cannons
antiqui
ties. In fact, it was his interest intor and a connoisseur. The archaeologist of the 1849 revolution became the subjects
a nine
teenth-century painter, Federico Faruffini, Valerio Cianfarani compiled a notable col of photographic reportage.
that led Vitali to early Italian photography.lection, as has Piero Becchetti, for example.) Italy also attracted art historians—the
Faruffini was also a photographer, and
Thus it was in studying the history of the disciples of a new branch of research—as
Vitali became interested in the medium last days of papal Rome that Italian photog well as hordes of archaeologists. Soon, photo
after discovering and acquiring a number ofraphy began to be investigated as a histori studios began to specialize in these particu
his photographs. In 1935, he wrote a piececal phenomenon. This may seem surprising lar areas of documentation, which were to
on Faruffini's work as a photographer forto those unfamiliar with Italian history: occupy much of Italian photographic pro
Emporium, an art magazine that Vitali him papal Rome was, after all, the center of a duction for many decades. The pictures
self edited. reactionary, theocratic, and medieval state. were not collected or made for the sake of
Photography by painters, either for their What role could photography possibly have photography, but as reminders, records of
own use, or—as was the case with played? As we well know from the experi the original site or artwork. The photogra
Faruffini—to sell to colleagues (most fre ence of these final decades of the twentieth phers' skill was in remaining as anonymous
quently images of nudes for use as models), century, technological progress is not nec as possible.
was not an uncommon practice in nine essarily indicative of an advanced, "pro In the late nineteenth century and in the
teenth-century Europe, but this activity had gressive" society. And so, one should be early twentieth, a new pictorialism was
little to do with photography as a profes surprised neither that there were techno introduced into Italy, with a strong advo
sion or as an art in its own right. While logical advances made in papal Rome, nor cate in the magazine La fotografia artistica
painters might demonstrate an aesthetic that it was seen as desirable, perhaps even (founded in Turin in March 1909 by
sensibility in their photographs, they re expedient, to record this new technology Annibale Cominetti). This new vision en
mained ensconced in a world that centered and its most common applications through countered its first enemies in the futurist
on painting. photography. Pius IX was especially pleased avant-garde. Yet even attempts by the
The true art of collecting—and that which to have photographs of the new railways Bragaglia brothers at creating a futurist
first illuminated the evolution of Italianand steamboats (just as years later, Mussolini photography, based on Anton Giulio
photography—was and still is best exempli would use the medium to celebrate achieve Bragaglia's theory of " Fotodinamismo,"
fied by the all-consuming passion of the ments in aviation, among other things). His were dismissed by futurist Umberto Boccioni

70

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Anton
AntonGiulio
GiulioBragaglia,
Bragaglia,Change
Change
of Position,
of Position,
1911 1911

and other artists. They refused to compro be noted that Fascist propaganda was reluc complished photographers as well, notably
mise the free-flowing, intuitive creativity tant to exalt the industrial world. Instead, it the film critic Francesco Pusinetti and the
they believed possible in painting and vari encouraged artists and other citizens to director Alberto Lattuada. Other photog
ous other forms of visual expression, and perpetuate a bucolic image of Italy and raphers, working alone or in groups that
therefore rejected photography, which they ancient Rome—of which, according to the gathered in the industrial towns of the North,
considered a systematic, "mechanical" art. same propaganda, Fascist Italy was a glori also began to take pictures for their own
This attitude coincided with the philosophi ous rebirth. Photography was recognized as sake. Photography as a medium was truly
cal verdict against any sort of mechanical a tool that could be utilized to support and beginning to take on a life of its own, and it
reproduction, in favor of a theory of art as facilitate the Fascist agenda, as well as to was around this period that a burgeoning
original self-expression. manipulate public perception. interest in collecting vintage photographs
The industrialization World War I forced During the 1930s a fresh appreciation of began to take hold. Italian photography,
on Italy, essentially a rural country, was the contemporary and urban world devel both past and current, was being recog
followed, after much violence, by the rise of oped in Italy, largely due to the very influ nized and valued as its own art, one that
fascism. If, as numerous modern historians ential impact of American films. Soon a could flourish in a climate that would toler
see this and other dictatorships, Italy's Fas national Italian film industry started to ate, and eventually embrace, the camera as
cist period was a hurdle on the rough road emerge, and it happened that several indi a tool capable of producing images worth
toward complete industrialization, it must viduals who had careers in film were ac preserving and possessing.

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