Photographic Collection

With a collection of more than 1,300,000 photographs, negatives, digital images and digitized material, primarily on Italian art and architecture from late antique until the present day, the Photographic Collection is one of the world's leading art historical photo archives. Scientific photographic campaigns using state-of-the-art technology support research at the institute, anticipate research projects, and define new standards for documentary photography.

Furthermore, the collection grows systematically through the addition of photographic campaigns and acquisitions as well as donations and bequests. The progressive digitization and scientific cataloging of the collection implies its constant updating and at the same time historicization. Photographs are brought to the forefront of scientific discourse both as objects in their own right and as carriers of visual information, enabling far-reaching contextualizations. The Photographic Collection is actively involved in these aspects and in mediating them.

Research tools

The Photographic Collection provides two research tools: the scientific catalogue and the Navigator.

Scientific catalogue  https://foto.biblhertz.it

Navigator https://nav.biblhertz.it

The Photographic Collection's scientific catalogue contains around 460,000 photographs relating to approximately 275,000 individual works, offering in-depth data on Italian topography, architecture, and art, as well as on artists and other key areas of the collection.

The Navigator complements the online catalogue as a research tool, allowing direct access to the digitised versions of around 600,000 analogue photographs, most of which are not yet catalogued.

Although there is considerable overlap between the scientific online catalogue and the Navigator, both research tools are necessary for a comprehensive search of the Photographic Collection's holdings.

Some of the Photographic Collection's holdings are still only available on site. These include the Rara, Incisioni, Corpus Gernsheim and Corpus der italienischen Zeichnungen (Corpus of Italian Drawings) sections, as well as larger formats such as Standard XL, Grandi and Super Grandi. These holdings will also be available online once they have been processed.

Photographic Services

The Photographic Collection is located on the second floor of the new building and on the piano nobile of Palazzo Zuccari. The photographic prints are accessible in a free-hand display. Part of the collection is temporarily stored in the basement of Palazzo Zuccari and can be ordered. All new acquisitions as well as a growing portion of the older holdings are available in the Online Catalog. Photographs for which the Bibliotheca Hertziana holds the copyrights can be ordered as high-resolution digital images for publication purposes. This applies to most of the photographs bearing the following classifications:

Negative numbers          U.Pl.*** or U.Fi.***
Digital images                   bhim***
Archives/Photographs  D'Onofrio, Leotta, Savio, Sigismondi, Rigamonti, Vescovo

Orders for publication purposes can be placed with the secretariat of the Photographic Collection (Monday through Friday 9:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.) or by mailing this form [Download pdf file] to fototeca@biblhertz.it.
Visitors can order all photographs as low-resolution pdf files with watermarks for the exclusive purpose of research and study from the information desk. Electronic and postal orders for study purpose are not possible.