Collections

The Photographic Collection manages more than three million analog images and digital image files. In the last three years, this number has increased by about 30% due to the digitization of all the analog photo prints (standard collection and the majority of the special collections). Apart from the born-digital images, there are now two to four or more derivatives of almost all photographs in the collection – from the negative and its digital representation to the paper print and its digital representations (recto and verso). These necessary reproductions pose a challenge both for the secure archiving of the high-resolution digital copies and their transformation into different usage formats – from RAW to web versions – and for their integration into the digital infrastructure of the Photographic Collection.
The main focus of the Photographic Collection falls on the architecture and art of the city of Rome in all genres and in all post-classical eras. Churches, palaces, villas, public buildings, and their furnishings, as well as the city’s topography, are documented as comprehensively as possible. Public and private art collections are also cataloged through systematic photographic campaigns.
Another focus is on the documentation of Italian art and architecture, particularly in central and southern Italy, which is being systematically advanced in close collaboration with the Department Michalsky. In addition, the collection of photographs of drawings – architectural, artistic, and based on ancient models – plays a prominent role in the collection.

Departments

Shape and Development of the Collection

The oldest photographic holdings can be traced back to the private collections of the Institute’s founder Henriette Hertz and its first director Ernst Steinmann. These collections comprised around 12,000 positives and focused mainly on drawings and on works by Michelangelo. The collection grew through purchases and by commissions given to external photographers. Since the 1920s, the Photographic Collection has also increasingly produced its own photographs, initially in selective and later in systematic photographic campaigns. In addition to its own campaigns and purchases, the Photographic Collection has grown through the acquisition of important estates and donations of private photo archives from photographers and art historians.
In 2005, the analog capture process was replaced by a digital one. Since 2010, various parts of the collection have been digitized, initially beginning with the negatives. Most recently, the photo positives in standard format were fully digitized in 2023.
The Photographic Collection manages the following different image media (as of December 2024):

approx. 600,000 photo positives in the standard 18 x 24 cm format in different materials (including albumin, collodion, silver gelatin, baryta and PET papers and others)
approx. 350,000 negatives and Ektachromes (on glass plates, nitrate, acetate, and polyester film; various formats)
approx. 190,000 photo positives of the Corpus Gernsheim in the format 13 x 18 cm
approx. 150,000 born-digital images
approx. 60,000 photo positives from the CIZ in 18 x 24 cm format
approx. 50,000 illustrated index-cards and postcards;
approx. 20,000 photographs in special collections (bequests/donations)
approx. 45,000 slides
approx. 2,000 photo positives in large format

All new acquisitions and about one third of the historical collection are available in the online catalog, which currently contains a total of 434,000 images. (https://foto.biblhertz.it/)

Photographic Campaigns

Photographic campaigns serving the purposes of documentation and research are among the main tasks of the Photographic Collection. The photographs are taken using the latest technology (Camera System Phase One XF IQ4 150MP), promptly cataloged in the database, and archived long-term.

Photographic Campaigns in the Digital Age

The technical possibilities of photography have developed exponentially in recent decades. Parallel to this development, there has been a similarly exponential growth in the demands of art and cultural history in terms of quality and quantity, as well as in ubiquity and availability of images and their associated metadata. At the same time, the effort required for the necessary approval processes for campaigns has increased significantly due to bureaucratic regulations and their sometimes very rigid application by the authorities.
Therefore, the preparation, execution, administration, post-production, and archiving of photographic campaigns in the digital age require a much larger temporary, personnel, and financial framework than was the case in the analog past.

Photographic Campaigns in Italy

Italy is the country with the most UNESCO World Heritage Sites, including entire urban ensembles such as Rome, Florence, Naples, and the Vatican. On the one hand, research is increasingly focusing on lesser-known monuments, some of which are being photographed for the first time. On the other hand, technical progress and increased demand require the repeated or new photographic documentation (in ever-improving resolution) of known monuments that have so far only been photographed in black and white, in insufficient quality, or before their restoration. In addition to buildings with their architectural decoration and their pictorial and sculptural furnishings (altarpieces, fresco and sculpture cycles, etc.), a new focus has emerged in recent years: the documentation of museum collections such as those of the Gallerie Nazionali d’Arte Antica (Palazzo Barberini and Galleria Corsini) or the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna. The photographic campaign at the Domus Aurea, during which over 700 images were produced, was particularly demanding in terms of approval process, planning, and execution, as well as in terms of post-production and cataloging the images. It was carried out for the publication of Marco Brunetti’s book (Nero’s Domus Aurea. Reconstruction and Reception of the Volta Dorata, Studi della Bibliotheca Hertziana, 15). In the last three years, a total of 152 photographic campaigns were carried out, generating approximately 7,300 new images.
The campaigns of the Photographic Collection support not only in-house research and publication projects but also long-term research projects such as “The Technical Study of Bernini’s Bronzes: Art History, Conservation and Material Science.” In addition, new areas such as “contemporary sacral architecture in Rome” are also being systematically developed.
All campaigns were conducted, as far as possible, with exclusive or shared rights so that the images can be used for scientific publications and be released in the online database of the Photographic Collection.

Locations of Photographic Campaigns 2022–2024

Rome
Chiesa della Santissima Trinità dei Pellegrini; Chiesa Evangelica Luterana; San Carlo Borromeo; San Marco Evangelista al Campidoglio; San Silvestro in Capite; SS. Silvestro e Martino ai Monti; Sant’Andrea in Via Flaminia; Santa Croce in Gerusalemme; Santa Lucia in Selci; Santa Maria dei Sette Dolori; Santa Maria in Montesanto; SS. Silvestro e Martino ai Monti; Chiesa del Santo Volto di Gesù; Santa Maria del Popolo; Santa Maria dell’Anima; Santo Spirito alla Ferratella; Santa Maria sopra Minerva; Santa Maria della Pace; SS. Trinità dei Pellegrini; San Marco Evangelista al Campidoglio; Fontana di Trevi; Palazzo del Quirinale; Santi Ambrogio e Carlo al Corso; San Giuseppe dei Falegnami; Domus Aurea; Foro Italico; Palazzo Barberini; Palazzo Ruggieri; Palazzo Stroganoff; Palazzo Zuccari; Istituto Storico e di Cultura dell'Arma del Genio.
Contemporary sacral architecture in Rome
Chiesa della Divina Sapienza; San Gaspare del Bufalo; San Pio da Pietrelcina; Santa Maria Stella dell’Evangelizzazione; Santa Maria Madre del Redentore; Santo Spirito alla Ferratella; Cappella Universitaria Tor Vergata; Santa Bernadette Soubirous; Chiesa Parrocchiale dei Santi Elisabetta e Zaccaria.
Italy and abroad
Anagni, Cattedrale di Santa Maria; Benevent, Santa Sofia; Berlin, Bode-Museum SMBPK (Bernini project); Berlin, American Academy (Bernini project); Camerino, Palazzo del Comune (Bernini project); Capua, Basilica Benedettina di Sant’Angelo in Formis; Caserta, Chiesa di Santa Maria delle Grazie presso la Vaccheria; Casertavecchia, Cathedral San Michele Arcangelo; Città di Castello (Perugia), Palazzo Vitelli a Sant’Egidio; Copenhagen, Statens Museum for Kunst (Bernini project); Edinburgh, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (Bernini project); Gaeta, Tempio di San Francesco; Gambatesa, Castello di Capua; L’Aquila, Basilica di San Bernardino; L’Aquila, Conventino di San Giuliano a L’Aquila; Leonessa, S. Francesco; Monreale, Cattedrale di Santa Maria Nuova; Montegranaro, Grotta di Sant’Ugo; Naples, Ex-Chiesa in Via dei Tribunali, Naples, San Giovanni a Carbonara; Naples, Accademia delle Belle Arti; Naples, Palazzo Donn’Anna Carafa; Naples, Cattedrale Metropolitana di Santa Maria Assunta; Salerno, Basilica Metropolitana, Cappella Capece Minutolo; Palermo, Palazzo Butera; Plymouth, The Box (Bernini project); Perugia, Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria; Potsdam, Schloss Sanssouci (Bernini project); Salerno, Basilica Metropolitana di Santa Maria degli Angeli, San Matteo e San Gregorio VII; Sessa Aurunca, Cattedrale; Sessa Aurunca, S. Angelo in Lauro; Siracusa, Monumento ai Caduti d’Africa; Venafro, Castello di Pandone; Volterra, Archivio Mauro Staccioli.

Special Collections

The Photographic Collection holds a number of (generally analog) Special Collections consisting of donations, bequests, and major acquisitions. These Special Collections are cataloged and, when possible, integrated into the general Photographic Collection.
Special collections differ from our standard collection and regular acquisitions in their structure which was often created for the personal use of the owner and thus follows idiosyncratic patterns.
As a result, they are the most labor-intensive and costly holdings in our collection. When added to our collection, they must be examined both physically and scientifically. Donations or new acquisitions must be free of damage and contamination, such as mold, and their containers – both for negatives and for prints – must be replaced with acid-free envelopes or boxes. The material is then inventorized, digitized, cataloged, and archived, both within the photographic collection and in digital long-term repositories.
The largest special collections are the Corpus Photographicum of Drawings (Corpus Gernsheim) and the Corpus of Italian Drawings (see Projects).
A number of art historians have donated or bequeathed their important private photographic archives, including Hans Belting, Chiara Briganti, Philipp Fehl, Richard Krautheimer, Carl Lamb, Otto Lehmann-Brockhaus, and Joachim Poeschke. In addition, several large archives have been acquired, including those of Cesare D’Onofrio, Francesco Negri Arnoldi, and Oscar Savio. In the last three years, the Photographic Collection has received two large donations (1,600 photographs and slides from Dorothee Kemper, 540 negatives from Giorgio Simoncini) and acquired the Saskia Archive, which contains important large-scale photographic campaigns for the sculptural decoration of St. Peter’s (2,600 negatives).

Fototeca Unione

The Unione Internazionale degli Istituti di Archeologia, Storia e Storia dell’Arte in Roma is the association of Italian and foreign cultural institutes in Rome (https://www.unioneinternazionale.it). It has been assembling its own photo archive since 1956. This is divided into two departments, dedicated to the art of Rome in the classical and post-classical periods. The section on ancient art is under the direction of the American Academy in Rome, with which there is close cooperation. The Fototeca dell’Unione di arte post-antica romana is built up and managed by the Photographic Collection of the BHMPI. It comprises more than 26,000 photographs, which are integrated into the collection’s overall holdings. In 2023, the available funds were used to purchase documentary photographs by Ukrainian photographers.

New Acquisitions

In addition to photographic campaigns and donations, the collection is growing thanks to the acquisition of works by external photographers and from museums and archives. These acquisitions, which cover all areas of post-classical Italian art, take particular account of the Institute’s current research and publication projects.
During the reporting period, larger collections of digital photographs were acquired from the following photographers: Marcello Leotta, Mauro Magliani, Anne Markham Schulz, Margareta Svensson, Mauro di Michelangelo, Luciano and Marco Pedicini, Sandro Scarioni, Roberto Sigismondi, and Domenico Ventura. New acquisitions from museums and collections were made from the following institutions, among others: the Kupferstichkabinett of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale (Florence), Galleria degli Uffizi (Florence), Wallraf-Richartz-Museum (Cologne), Musée du Louvre (Paris), Graphische Sammlung Albertina (Vienna), Kunsthistorisches Museum (Vienna), Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana.