The Fondazione Giorgio Cini’s Institute of Art History houses – and makes available to scholars – a very rich photo library, home to around one million photographs, more than 300,000 of which are mounted on card and are freely accessible through a series of special consultation drawers.
The remaining positives are split up among some thirty photo collections acquired by the institute since the 1950s and now housed in the spaces of the Nuova Manica Lunga library. Worthy of mention among them are the personal photo libraries of leading scholars such as Giuseppe Fiocco and Rodolfo Pallucchini, the very first directors of the Institute of Art History; the collections belonging to art historians Evelyn Sandberg Vavalà and Raymond Van Marle; the collection of the Venetian antiquarian Ettore Viancini, and lastly the Fototeca Italiana (Italian Photo Library), put together by the photographer of the Superintendency of Florence, Nicolò Cipriani.
Since 1981, the Institute of Art History has also housed the Regional Photo Library, including more than 60,000 reproductions of works of art preserved in museums throughout the Veneto region.
Finally, the Institute’s scientific research and cataloguing activities have led to the establishment of a series of photographic atlases: genuine catalogues of works of art that may be consulted online.
Services
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Research Assistance
The Photo Library staff provide research and consultation assistance for the materials in the photo fonds.
Digital Reproductions
It is possible to request digital reproductions of the materials stored in the photo fonds: please contact fototeca.digitale@cini.it for further information.
Catalogue Research
Online Catalogue Through the online catalogue, it is possible to access images belonging to the photo fonds or produced during specific photographic campaigns and research activities carried out by the Institute.
For further information, please contact catalogo.fototeca@cini.it.