Digitization of photographic images workshop

5- 6 December 2005

The Photographic Archive has been very pleased to host a two-day course on the Digitization of the photographic images, run by Andrea Mazzini (FPM-Rome).

The course programme will cover the following issues:

• Abc, terminologie, tecniche  e strumenti
• L’acquisizione digitale
• Materiali e problematiche, la scelta degli strumenti

• Consultazione
• Prove tecniche (in uso strumenti apple, nikon, epson, imacon, gretag, adobe)

• Il colore, calibrazione e profili
• Metodologia lavorativa, il flusso di lavoro
• Consultazione

• Prove tecniche
• La scelta degli strumenti
• Valutazioni commerciali

Second Photographic Archives Meeting

27 October 2005, 9,30-13,00 pm

9,30 am-13,00 pm

Prof. Lorenzo Scaramella and Avv. Marco Ciapponi have developed the issues proposed in the first meeting of the 7th June 2005: the conservation of digitized images and problems relating to the intellectual property of photographic collections.

• Digitalizzazione delle immagini fotografiche (FPM)
• Utilizzo di nuove tecniche nel restauro della fotografia (Giulia Cucinella Briant)
• Storia della fotografia e dei procedimenti fotografici (Lorenzo Scaramella)

History of Photography workshop
27- 29 September 2005

• I primi procedimenti: il dagherrotipo e il calotipo. La carta salata.
• La fotochimica dell’argento: l’annerimento diretto, lo sviluppo, il fissaggio.
• Le tecniche dell’Ottocento per antonomasia: il negativo al collodio e la stampa all’albumina.
• Applicazioni particolari del collodio: ambrotipia e ferrotipia, loro diffusione ed importanza.
• L’evoluzione con la tecnica alla gelatina-argento.
• La rivoluzione tecnico-sociale della fine dell’Ottocento. Il passaggio del procedimento fotografico all’industria: le lastre alla gelatina, le carte da stampa.
• L’introduzione dei supporti pellicolari.
• La miniaturizzazione dei formati.
• La risposta del movimento pittorialista e le tecniche non argentiche.
• Fotochimica delle tecniche ai sali ferrici (cianotipia, platinotipia, callitipia).
• I procedimenti al bicromato (stampa al carbone, gomma, inchiostri grassi).
• Le tecniche fotomeccaniche.
• La nascita del colore e l’evoluzione del XX secolo. Il colore contemporaneo.
  Le problematiche di stabilità: carta e cartoni, i supporti pellicolari e gli studi più recenti sulla loro permanenza.

First Archive Meeting
7 June 2005, 9,30-13,00 pm

The Photographic Archive organised an informal meeting on 7th June 2005 to discuss problems and difficulties in dealing Photographic Archives as well as in cataloguing and digitizing photographic collections to make them available on the Internet.

The running order for the meeting has been as follows:

9,30: Benvenuto, Valerie Scott (Bibliotecaria, British School at Rome)

10,00–10,45: Problemi di conservazione collegati alla digitalizzazione delle immagini, Lorenzo Scaramella (Fotografo e Docente di storia e tecnica della fotografia presso l’Università Suor Orsola Benincasa, Napoli)

10,45-11,30: Break

11,30-12,15: Quando lo sfruttamento di una fotografia può dirsi legale? Cenni sulla disciplina giuridica nella fotografia , Avv. Marco Ciapponi (Avvocato Senior Studio legale Salinari di Roma, specializzato dal 1992 nel settore della tutela internazionale del diritto della proprietà intellettuale, con particolare riferimento alle nuove tecnologie e alla tutela informatica)

12,15-12,30: Progetto Ostia Antica, E.J. Shepherd (Archeologo Direttore presso la Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici di Ostia) e Alessandra Giovenco (Archivista, British School at Rome)

12,30-13,00: Conclusioni

Images and Memory: Rome in the photographs of Peter Paul Mackey 1890-1901

Exhibition, January 2005

The British School at Rome’s Library and Archive reopened in March 2004 on the completion of major building work which has transformed the BSR by providing new facilities, including a Lecture Theatre and Gallery, as well as an extension to the Library.

In January 2005 an exhibition was held in the new Gallery, the first of a series on the theme of ‘Images and Memory’ illustrating Italy in the late nineteenth century through images from the historic photographic collections held in the Archive which have never been seen before.

This exhibition included a selection of photographs of Rome taken between 1890 and 1901 by the English Domenican Father Peter Paul Mackey who frequented the BSR Library and whose life’s work was dedicated to the Leonine edition of the works of St. Thomas Aquinas and whose interests included archaeology and photography.

Born in Erdington, England in 1851 he graduated in law and completed his theological studies in Louvain. In 1881 he arrived in Rome to work on the exegesis of St. Thomas Aquinas’s texts and, fascinated by Roman ruins, he began to attend the meetings and participate in the group excursions to the Roman Campagna organized by members of the British and American Archaeological Society founded by John Henry Parker.

Thomas Ashby, Director of the British School at Rome from 1906 to 1925, and the two sisters Dora and Agnes Bulwer were also members and also photographers and it is thanks to their meeting through the Society that gradually their collections ended up in the British School and today form the nucleus of the Archive’s historic photographic collections. A set of the John Henry Parker collection of approximately 3300 prints were left us through the Library of the British and American Archaeological Society.

The images, which have never been published or seen before, offer a portrait of the city of Rome at the end of the 19th century, surrounded by and immersed in the countryside, with vineyards and fields of artichokes next to the Roman ruins, a landscape that is more rural than urban with demolition and new building work in progress. Although only 100 years separates us from the world described in these photographs and that in which we live today, such profound changes have taken place that it is impossible today to appreciate the extraordinary beauty in the juxtaposition of landscape and ancient ruins.

If you are interested in buying reproductions of the photographs shown at the exhibition please contact the Archivist.

The following postcards and posters are available: