Stefano Bardini’s Photographic Archive, “il Bel Paese”, and the Golden Age of Italian Art

Abstract

This paper suggests that Bardini’s campaign to demonstrate the value of Early Modern Italian art and artifacts when that culture was disdained followed upon the heels of Alinari’s mission of the 1850s onward to document every monumental and scenic site in Italy, including people and customs. Both agendas were promoted through photography. By dispersing images of “il Bel Paese” and its inhabitants, Alinari produced a visual archive of ruined monuments and vanishing customs, stimulating a sense of Italian identity among the peninsula’s inhabitants whose characteristics were so richly documented. Bardini, in turn, photographed sculptures and objects aesthetically displayed and evoking an artisanal past, leading to an increased regard for, and heightened monetary value of, the items so evocatively displayed in his showrooms. Unlike Alinari and other firms, Bardini was not a professional but was the only dealer early on to develop an expertise in photography. These skills were crucial in promoting and marketing the Golden Age of Italian art. Peasants, posed and placed within picturesque settings, and ‘portraits’ of sculptures or household furnishings against neutral backgrounds, entered into the mental and visual stock of observers by way of photographs, resulting in turning an imagined Italian identity into a concrete reality.