753
French and Italian (Genoa: A. Beuf, 1839; Bologna: tip.
Nobili e c., 1839; Rome: A. Monaldi, 1840). Moreover,
the fi rst experiments were carried out: on 2 September
in Florence; on 8 October in Turin; in Pisa at the First
Congress of Italian Scientists from 1–15 October, thanks
to the physicist Tito Puliti, in Milan on 30 November;
in Naples on 28 November and 15 December. The da-
guerreotype process immediately found favour among
the bourgeois, who were attracted by the possibility
of producing images which were faster and less costly
than painting and engraving. At fi rst, there were many
foreigners who travelled around Italy doing daguerreo-
types, in particular, the Frenchmen Alphonse Bernoud,
active from 1840 to 1872 ca. in Genoa, Florence and
Naples and Perraud, active from 1840 to 1846 ca. in
Lombardy—Veneto, Turin and Rome. There was the
Parisian Adolphe, active in the 1840s; Meissner, Stenzel,
Joseph Renaud (1809–1860 ca.) and Fortin were mainly
active in Turin. Very soon, the Italians were working
side by side with the French in using the daguerreotype
process: Ferdinando Brosy in Lombardy—Veneto,
Trento and Trieste; Enrico Federico Jest in Turin; Ales-
sandro Duroni (1807–1870) in Milan; Antonio Sorgato
in Venice; Lorenzo Suscipj, Angelo (1793–1858) and
Giacomo (1819–1891) Luswergh in Rome.
The daguerreotype process captured the imagina-
tion of the artistic and scientifi c world, and raised a
far-reaching debate on its characteristics and potential.
The bourgeois élite—culturally speaking, the most
vital and committed protagonists of the Italian Risorgi-
mento—were the ones to pick up on the signifi cance
of photography as a new, extraordinary means of com-
municating and learning. It is suffi cient to mention
Macedonio Melloni’s passionate report: Relazione
intorno al dagherrotipo, letta alla Regia Accademia
delle Scienze di Napoli nella tornata del 12 Novembre
1839. This physicist and patriot went into exile in Paris
after the tumult in 1831. His report was one of the
most important scientifi c announcements published in
Italy in the early days of photography. The debate on
Italian scientifi c developments held at the Congress of
Scientists in Pisa in October 1839 was also important
and signifi cant. Among the main themes addressed
by the four hundred delegates at the Congress were
the liberalization of trade among the different Italian
states and the development of the railway network,
indispensable premises for the development of a com-
mon market. In this context, photography was presented
through experiments that aroused wonder and interest
in onlookers, and this confi rms how rapidly the novelty
of the invention was received, with its way of meeting
the demands of representation and self-representation
of the rising middle classes.
The “genres” that the daguerreotype process inherited
from its predecessors in the visual arts were the viewand the portrait. Views respected the linguistic codes of
painting and engraving, and were clearly derived from
the rules of Renaissance perspective in the symmetrical
layout and central positioning of the image. Among the
most important collections of Italian daguerreotype
views are the 159 daguerreotypes housed in the Science
Museum in London. They were commissioned by the
English philologist Alexander John Ellis (1814–1890)
from different photographers, among whom were
Lorenzo Suscipj and Achille Morelli. The collection
of John Ruskin, now in Lancaster University, is also
signifi cant. Of course, favourite subjects were the most
typical monuments in Italian cities, arranged in a visual
itinerary that isolated and exalted these works as topoi
of cultural and artistic identity.
There were many attempts to turn daguerreotype
plates into plates for engraving. The best results were
obtained not so much by engraving the daguerreotypes
as by transferring the design manually to the plates, as
in the well-known series of Italian views in Excursions
daguerriennes, vues et monuments les plus remarqua-
bles du Globe, published by Lerebours in Paris in 1842,
and the series of aquatints entitled Vues d’Italie d’après
le daguerréotype, published in Milan between 1840 and
1842 by Ferdinando Artaria (1781–1843). These initia-
tives in the world of publishing, a prelude to the modern
illustrated guide, were aimed at educated bourgeois tour-
ists, who, in fact, preferred this type of product because
it was less expensive than traditional engravings. It was
also easier to carry because of its small format.
After 1842 it was possible to do portraits in the da-
guerreotype process since, thanks to the introduction
of new lenses and faster chemical processes, posing
times were reduced. Portraits done in this way had these
unquestionable advantages: clear, precise details (as in
the views); a work that was as precious and unique as
a portrait in oil or a miniature, but defi nitely at a much
lower cost. Among the Italian daguerreotypists who are
worth mentioning: Alessandro Manzoni’s stepson Ste-
fano Stampa (1819–1907), who did beautiful portraits of
the members of his family; Antonio Sorgato, author of
numerous refi ned portraits; Alessandro Duroni, optician
and founder of one of the fi rst ateliers of photography.
From this period onwards, photography studios began to
be organized according to different professional fi elds,
among which was portrait retouching, often carried out
by ex-miniaturists.
In the fi rst years of the 1840s, the calotype process be-
gan to spread throughout Italy, but with less success than
the daguerreotype process. The technique introduced by
W. H. Fox Talbot (1800–1877) had resolved the prob-
lem of doing images in series with the introduction of a
printing process from a single negative. With respect to
the daguerreotype, however, the calotype was thought
to have less defi nition, mainly because of the graininessITALY
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