The Photographic Archive of the British School at Rome is made up of a number of very rare collections of historic photographs which total over 120,000 prints and negatives. The collections include calotypes, glass negatives, negatives, photographic prints, 35 mm film, postcards, slides and lantern slides. The majority of these unique collections are still unknown outside the BSR and most are unpublished.
A broad range of subjects is covered and includes Italian and North African archaeology and topography, ancient Greek and Roman art, in particular sculpture, and European medieval and Renaissance art and architecture

The importance of these collections both as a resource for research and for the history of photography has been underestimated in the past and our main aim today is to conserve the material to a high standard and to make it accessible to the international scholarly community. The first role of the Archive is to safeguard and preserve its historic collections and make them available for research and publication as well as to stimulate collaboration and discussion between other Archives in Rome, thus creating in the BSR a forum for discussion, lectures, courses, exhibitions and collaborative projects.

Over the last 5 years we have worked on the cleaning and reorganisation of all the collections in the Photographic Archive. An inventory and catalogue has yet to be made of most items and consequently these are not yet available for consultation. The Library and Archive was closed for 4 years from 2000-2004 due to major building work which included the construction of a new basement, built to high conservation and security standards, that now houses the Photographic and Historic Archives.

Some of our collections are currently available on www.reteurbs.org and also on a new website: www.bsrdigitalcollections.it