Photo Library
The Vatican Museums Photo Library has as its main objectives the conservation, protection, enhancement, promotion and study of the Institution’s historical photographic heritage. It provides advice as well as historical and technical information, and assists researchers in their iconographic studies.
The collection includes not only the archives relating to the Museums’ collections, but also many historic photographs depicting views, landscapes, the city, buildings and monuments in Rome, as well as other Italian or foreign cities.
The current photographic patrimony entrusted to the care of the Office consists of approximately 400,000 positives, 350,000 original negatives in black and white, including over 50,000 glass plates which constitute the quintessential full collection of the historical archives. Prominent among these is the Romualdo Moscioni Archive (1849-1925), consisting of 15,700 plates acquired in the early 1930s; of special note is the Apulia Monumentale photographic campaign, which reproduced between November 1891 and the summer of 1892 the Romanesque monuments of Apulia, Campania and Basilicata on behalf of the then-Ministry of Education.
Over time, many other photographic archives have been identified: those of Anderson, Faraglia, Felici and Brogi. However, of particular relevance is the Anderson Sistine Chapel Universal Judgement Archive and the Pauline Chapel (photographic campaigns by Domenico Anderson from 1932-34).
The following archives have been constituted: Rome Churches, Major Basilicas, Excavations, Palaces, Villas, Squares and Fountains, and Streets and Alleys.
There is also a significant miscellany of photographic documents relating to works and artefacts from private Italian and foreign collections, as well as the VCS Events Archive, which includes rich documentation of events linked to the Museums, as well as the Pontiffs and Exhibitions sections.
Also noteworthy is the Ferper Collection, an acronym for the physician Ferdinando Perez, who took photographs of important paintings held in major Italian and European museums, using grazing lighting and an instrument of his own invention: the pinacoscope (now a binocular microscope).
The Photo Library has also recently acquired the Busiri Vici Collection, from the architect and art historian Andrea Busiri Vicit (1903-1989): the subjects relate primarily to sixteenth- to nineteenth- century painting, the history of collecting, art history, and the history of landscape and architecture.
In recent years the Office has coordinated the project for the digitization of glass plate holdings, and thanks to the cataloguing work, over 10,500 catalogued plates are available in the Photo Library's online catalogue, a number that is gradually increasing. In the same section, the first digital exhibitions on the Vatican Museums website are accessible: “Raffaello in Vaticano. La memoria fotografica del divin pittore tra fine ‘800 e primo ‘900” (Raphael in the Vatican. The photographic memorial of the ‘divin pittor’ from the late 1800s and early 1900s) and “L’Apulia Monumentale di Romualdo Moscioni. L’uso della fotografia come documento nell’Italia post-unitaria” (Romualdo Moscioni’s Monumental Apulia. The use of photography as document in post-unification Italy).
The Photo Library collaborates with many other bodies, institutions and entities: the Vatican Apostolic Library, L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican Television Centre, the ICCD - Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione (Central Institute for Cataloguing and Documentation), the Istituto Centrale per la Grafica (National Institute for Graphic Design), the Municipal Photographic Archive of Rome, the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz and the American Academy in Rome.
The Photo Library is a Service accessible both to the Museums internal staff and to external applicants. It is possible to consult the research tools and photographic material by appointment.
To enable the methods of access and consultation to be agreed satisfactorily, it is advisable to contact the Office well in advance, specifying the subject and purpose of the research.
University students and doctoral candidates are required to provide a letter of presentation signed by their tutor.
Staff:
Paola Di Giammaria, Director
Francesca Martusciello
Contacts:
fototeca.musei@scv.va
+39 06 69864169