Sopra un dagherrotipo conservato nel Museo di Antropologia di Firenze

Abstract

The article tells the story of a daguerreotype conserved in the photo library of the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnology, SMA, of the University of Florence. It is the portrait of a young South American native, taken in a photographic studio in Tarija, Bolivia. The client was Paolo Mantegazza, founder of the Florentine Museum and the first scholar in Italy to establish the chair of Anthropology. After a historical reconstruction of the circumstances in which Mantegazza had the portrait executed, the theoretical assumptions underlying the scholar's convictions and writings are examined.