Vatican Museums

Beginning in the second half of the nineteenth century, photographers started to capture the face of Rome through their images, which at the time were transposed onto glass plates. These photographs created a collective memory of the Eternal City that makes it unique in the world. This is how the museum historical photographic collection was born, preserved in the Photo Library and then consolidated with the arrival of the Moscioni Archive in the early 1930s. The majority of this archive is now housed in the Photo Library of the Vatican Museums: approximately 15,000 glass plates that form the collection named after the most representative photographer of the Vatican Museums. This collection is considered the jewel in the crown of the institutional historical photographic collection.

2025 is not only a Jubilee Year, but it also marks the centenary of Romualdo Moscioni’s death. This inspired the idea for an exhibition and a catalogue that tell the story of this master of the photo and his unique style through a theme closely linked to the Holy Year: the pilgrimage of the Seven Churches of Rome. The exhibition and its accompanying catalogue are structured into seven sections, one for each church, with seven glass negatives and a substantial corpus of silver bromide gelatine photographic prints.