269
ing as an artist. None of his photographs taken after
1860 remain, and nothing is known of his last years.
However, his surviving photographs are the work of one
of the greatest Italian photographers from the inception
of photography in Italy.
Silvia Paoli
Biography
Giacomo Caneva was born at Padua on the 4th of July
1813 of Giuseppe Caneva and Anna Pavan. There were
four other children, Antonio, Giovanni, Camillo and
Teresa, who died as a child. The father was well-to-do,
and was the owner of the “Albergo al Principe Carlo”
in Prato della Valle. Caneva left Padua on the 12th of
November 1834 to register at the Regia Accademia di
Belle Arti at Venice (Royal Academy of Fine Arts).
Here he took courses in perspective, ornamentation and
decoration, and developed his knowledge of perspective,
which played such a large part in his work as a painter
and photographer. After he had fi nished his studies he
went to Rome, perhaps with the help of a grant, to perfect
his technique. Here he soon achieved recognition for his
works at Villa Torlonia which were carried out in 1840
and 1841 by the architect Giuseppe Jappelli. With the
discovery of the dagueurreotype process Caneva began
his career as a photographer, but then decided to use
mainly the calotype process. He became one of the lead-
ing members of the “Roman School of Photography”;
his studio was fi rst in Via Sistina 100 and then in Via del
Corso 446, near S. Carlo. Among his preferred subjects
were the statues in the Musei Vaticani, the monuments
of Rome and surroundings, and the countryside in
Lazio and Campania. In 1859 he went to China and
India, and there remain some engravings taken from
his photographs of that journey. He died in Rome on
the 29th of March 1865.
See Also: Talbot, William Henry Fox; Blanquart-
Evrard, Louis-Désiré, Le Gray, Gustave; Humbert
de Molard, Baron Louis-Adolphe and Geoffray,
Stephane.
Further Reading
Pietrucci, Napoleone, Biografi a degli artisti padovani, Padova,
1858, 68–69.
Fotografi a, in “L’Artista,” Milano, I, 12 gennaio 1859, 16.
Castellani, Giovan Battista Dell’allevamento dei bachi da seta
in China fatto ed osservato sui luoghi da Giovan Battista
Castellani, Firenze, 1860.
Ganot, A., Lezioni di fi sica sperimentale, Rome, 1864.
Negro, Silvio, Seconda Roma 1850–1870, Milan, 1943.
Negro, Silvio, Caneva “pittore veneziano” precursore della foto-
grafi a a Roma, in Strenna dei romanisti, V, 1944, 155–157.
Negro, Silvio et al., Mostra della fotografi a a Roma dal 1840 al
1915 , Roma, 1953 (exhibition catalogue).
Negro, Silvio, Nuovo Album romano, Vicenza, 1965.
Roncalli, Nicola, Cronaca di Roma 1844–1870, I, edited by Maria
Luisa Trebiliani, Rome, Istituto per la Storia del Risorgimento
Italiano, 1972, 198.
Becchetti, Piero, La fotografi a a Roma dalle origini al 1915,
Rome, Colombo, 1983.
Becchetti, Piero, Pittori fotografi a Roma 1845–1870. Immagini
dalla raccolta fotografi ca comunale, Rome, Multigrafi ca,
1987 (exhibition catalogue).
Becchetti, Piero, Giacomo Caneva e la Scuola Fotografi ca Ro-
mana (1847/1855), Florence, Alinari, 1989.
Romano, Serena (editor), L’immagine di Roma 1848–1895. La
città, l’archeologia, il medioevo nei calotipi del fondo Tumi-
nello, Naples, Electa Napoli, 1994.
von Dewitz, Bodo, Siegert, Dietmar and Karin Schuller—Proco-
povici (editors), Italien sehen und sterben. Photographien der
zeit des Risorgimento (1845–1870), Heidelberg, Braus, 1994,
279 (exhibition catalogue).
Hernandez Latas, José Antonio and Piero Becchetti, Recuerdo de
Roma (1848–1867). Fotografi as de la colección Bernardino
Montañés, Zaragoza, Diputation de Zaragoza, 1997.
Koenig, Thilo, Caneva, Giacomo, in Saur Allgemeines Künst-
ler—Lexicon. Die Bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und
Völker, Band 16, Campagne—Cartellier, München, Leipzig,
K.G.Saur, 1997, 132–133.
Rampin, Marina, Note sul pittore - fotografo Giacomo Caneva
e sulla sua formazione, in Bollettino del Museo Civico di
Padova, 86, 1997, 111–120.
Margiotta, Anita and Simonetta Tozzi (editors), Rome au XIX
siècle. Photographies inédites 1852–1890, Rome, Fratelli
Palombi, 1999 (exhibition catalogue).
Cartier Bresson, Anne and Anita Margiotta (editors), Roma 1850.
Il circolo dei pittori fotografi del Caffè Greco/ Rome 1850.
Le cercle des artists photographes du Caffè Greco, Milan,
Electa, 2003 (exhibition catalogue).CAPEL-CURE, ALFRED (1826–1896)
English photographerColonel Alfred Capel-Cure was born in 1826, a soldier
and gentleman who was among the fi rst generation of
amateur photographers. He owned Blake Hall in Essex,
and later inherited Badger Hall, Shropshire, in 1884
from his uncle Edward Cheney, whose brother, Robert
Henry Cheney, was also an amateur photographer. He
worked with paper negatives and salted paper prints in
the 1850s. His subject matter included his home, Blake
Hall, medieval architecture and ruins in England, Wales,
and Scotland, as well as France. Additionally he photo-
graphed soldiers in the 55th Regiment at Templemore
and Athlone in Ireland. He also made prints from the
negatives of his uncle, Robert Cheney, in 1859–60,
which are in the Horblit Collection at the Houghton
Library, Harvard University and the Center for Cana-
dian Architecture, Montreal. Examples of his work can
be found in the collections at the Getty Museum, Los
Angeles, and the Center for Canadian Architecture,
Montreal. He died in 1896.
Diane Waggoner