Fratelli Alinari (19th century): City view of Florence Panoramic view over the city, c. 1880, albumen paper print

Technique: albumen paper print, mounted on Cardboard

Stamp: Lower right Blank stamp, Fratelli Alinari. Florence. 19th century

Inscription: At the lower part inscribed in the printing plate: "No 1862 Firenze_Panorama della Città visto da S. Miniato al Monte".

Date: c. 1880

Description: The photograph shows the view of Florence's medieval historic centre with the Duomo, Palazzo delle Signoria, Basilica of Santa Croce and the banks of the River Arno. Original photograph with high detail sharpness. An early example of travel photography. Around the middle of the 19th century, more and more tourists from bourgeois circles travelled to Italy. At that time, photographs could only be taken at great expense in terms of time and with expensive, unwieldy equipment. This made many tourists all the more grateful for the work of the professional photographer's studios on site, so that they could bring back a souvenir from their holiday home or collect them as mementos. Famous photographers such as Carlo Naya, Giorgio Sommer and the Alinari brothers photographed the most famous sights in their home cities and travelled themselves to photograph their customers' favourite destinations and offer them as albumen prints. Ancient art treasures were also photographed and offered to travellers. The high-quality photographs of sculptures and frescoes continued to make an important contribution to documenting the art treasures and making them accessible to scholars from all over Europe, who previously had to rely on copies or engravings if they were unable to view the original themselves. "Fratelli Alinari" in Florence are the oldest surviving photographic company in the world: founded in 1852, a good two decades after the French inventor Joseph Nicéphore Niépce succeeded in capturing an image on a tin plate. The Alinari brothers were Romualdo (1830-1891), Leopoldo (1832-1865) and Guiseppe (1836-1892). Leopoldo began taking photographs during the daguerreotype period and worked for the lithographer Guiseppe Bardi, with whom he founded a joint photographic studio in 1850. In 1854, Leopoldo bought Bardi's shares and, together with his brothers, founded the Fratelli Alinari studio. It became one of the most important Italian studios of the 19th century and later one of the largest photographic archives in the world, which still exists today.

Keywords: Italy view, documentary photography, architectural photography, travel photography, city view, 19th century, Historicism, Architecture, Italy,

Size: Cardboard: 18,4 cm x 24,4 cm (7,2 x 9,6 in)

Good condition. Pale light staining along the edges. Occasional rubbing and fine scratches visible. Pale staining in places in the upper area. The paper is slightly deformed.

18.4 x 24.4 cm