756
century, when great art historians like Adolfo Venturi
introduced the use of photography in the study of art and
when the fundamental texts in this sector were illustrated
with photos that mainly came from the Alinari studios.
Knowledge of the great works of painting and sculpture
also became widespread through the carbon print, cho-
sen by Alinari in the 1860s because of the stability of
the image, the refi ned rendering of the tones and shades
and the possibility of using coloured pigments to adapt
to the different media of the artistic works represented.
An Alinari ‘style’ thus came to be recognized in the
monument view genre, and had a great infl uence on the
other contemporary photographers who were working
in the same genre.
Another firm working in Florence was the one
founded by Giacomo Brogi, who specialized in por-
traits as well as views and works of art. Brogi’s views
always showed the monument within the urban and
social fabric, thus capturing it in its context and his-
torical dimension, not separated from time and space.
Brogi’s portraiture adopted the formulas of the atelier
portrait in the painstaking choice of furnishings, in the
studied composition of the poses and gestures of the
sitters. Above all, with Carlo (1850–1925), Giacomo’s
son, the portrait evolved towards more refi ned forms in
keeping with the taste of the period, according to the
principles Carlo himself wrote in his treatise Il ritratto
in fotografi a: appunti pratici per chi posa, published in
Florence in 1895. Among his most famous portraits are
those of the royal family, as well as numerous portraits
of the most disparate professions: industrialists, artisans,
men of letters, travelling salesmen.
The Alinaris and Carlo Brogi played a fundamental
role in the Società Fotografi ca Italiana, founded in 1889
and soon the main point of reference for anything that
had to do with photography in all regions of Italy, mainly
through its periodical Bullettino. In particular, Carlo
Brogi was concerned with questions of copyright and
the legal protection of photographs, and thus became
an unfl agging promoter of initiatives in defence of the
profession.
After ca. 1860, the development of portraiture made
great strides. It was a period when, through photography,
the emerging bourgeoisie was trying to transmit and
consolidate an image of its own status and rise to power.
Next to the more widely diffused portraits in carte-de-
visite format, there were portraits in larger formats,
starting with the cabinet format, which corresponded to
the economic resources and prestige of the sitter. The
reduction of posing times made new compositions and
a more careful interpretation of the subject possible.
Among the most important photographers: in northern
Italy, the studios of Luigi Montabone, Henry Le Lieure,
Giulio Rossi, Alessandro Duroni, Giovan Battista Gan-
zini, Giovan Battista Sciutto (1827–1900 ca.); in centralItaly, the Felici fi rm and the D’Alessandri brothers in
Rome, who were also among the pope’s photographers;
the Brogi fi rm, Ugo Bettini in Livorno; in the South, the
Interguglielmi studio.
“Genre scenes” were the main concern of some
Italian photographers, in particular the Venetian Carlo
Naya, the Roman Filippo Belli, Michele Amodio,
Alphonse Bernoud, Giorgio Conrad, Giorgio Sommer
in Naples. Sommer photographed local customs, the
work of craftsmen, the humble but dignifi ed condition
of common people of Naples. His images, done in the
studio or on the street, represent a varied, picturesque
humanity, but without emplaning the problem of social
differences; however, they never lacked respect for the
subjects portrayed. They were mainly done as souvenirs
for tourists.
The events of the Risorgimento served as a catalyst
for many photographers. After Lecchi’s shots in 1849,
Eugène Sevaistre photographed the barricades in Pal-
ermo and the fort of Gaeta in 1860. Alessandro Pavia did
an entire album of the thousand participants in Garibal-
di’s enterprise of 1860, thus accomplishing a colossal
work single-handed. Other photographers did thousands
of portraits, especially in carte-de-visite format, of the
leading fi gures of the Risorgimento. Garibaldi, Vittorio
Emanuele II and Cavour are among the most recurrent
subjects, followed by hundreds of protagonists of the
different phases of the war. Gioacchino Altobelli and
Ludovico Tuminello (1824–1907) shot the breach that
had been opened in the Porta Pia in Rome in September
1870.
After 1880 the new gelatine silver—bromide process
technique opened up a whole new range of expression in
photographic language. Next to the traditional ateliers
and professional photographers, the so-called “irregu-
lar” photographers appeared. These were amateurs who,
thanks to their up-to-date cultural and technical train-
ing, had an intuition of the great potential of the tool,
and used it as a function of a new language. Existing
conventions were abandoned, especially those derived
from the rules of perspective, in order to search for new
modes of representation. Next to the traditional genres
discussed above, the doors were opened to true docu-
mentary work. By then, it was possible to reproduce
motion and events as they were happening, exposure
times could be reduced to a fraction of a second. And
so the main characteristic of photography was revealed:
it could see beyond our fi eld of vision, and show what
our synthetic way of seeing could not take in.
Among the main protagonists of this season: Luigi
(1858–1925) and Giuseppe Primoli (1851–1927) in
Rome, Giuseppe Beltrami and Luca Comerio (1878–
1940) in Milan, Vittorio Sella (1859–1943). The Primoli
brothers, whose snapshots showed the life of the belle
époque of the Roman nobility (the landscape, the horseITALY
Hannavy_RT72353_C009.indd 756 7/5/2007 11:33:42 AM