Italie, le Grand Tour, dans le miroir de la photographie au XIXe siècle

We all take thousands of photographs, fill our hard disks and slow down our computers. We know how to see. But do we know how to simply look? In order to really appreciate a monument, a site, are they not dissociated from time, from patience? This is the insidious question the images by travelers and photographers from the XIXth century ask in the Bel Paese. From Venice to Paestum, from Florence to Rome, amateurs at the time had to save on expensive material (glass plates, albumin paper) and had to deal with exposure times that could not be shortened. It was therefore important to choose one’s image well –be it by creating a setting- before immortalising it… Can this explain the fact these photographs have travelled through time? The jetty of San Remo, the arcades of Bologna, an excursion to the Vesuvius, prickly pears and mummies of the Capuchins in Palermo, all these timeless classics. Almost too classic: we regret the trip does not also take us to the Pugglie, Calabria, the Abruzze region, or that of the Marche. Fortunately there is also Instagram…

• Italie, le Grand Tour, dans le miroir de la photographie au XIXe siècle, by Giovanni Fanelli and Barbara Mazza, published by Nicolas Chaudun, 2013, 352 p., €50.