American Academy in Rome - Carmela Vircillo Franklin 20th Director

"Steps Off the Beaten Path:
Nineteenth-Century Photographs of Rome and its Environs"
Images from the collection of Dee and Bruce Lundberg,
curated by Dr. Bruce Lundberg and Professor John Pinto

Rome in the years between 1860 and 1870 saw the Risorgimento gathering strength elsewhere in Italy, and a Pope barely holding onto his temporal powers with the support of occupying French troops. Photography, having completed its first twenty years, was at the same time experiencing its own Renaissance. The Daguerreotype had come and gone, and the paper negative and salted paper prints had been eclipsed by the glass wet plate and albumen prints. The more precise rendering made possible by these techniques encouraged practitioners to envision their art in a new way.

Rome from the earliest days had been a magnet for tourists, pilgrims, and artists. Photographers arrived in their turn, drawn by the presence of tourists who might buy their wares, but strongly influenced in their choice of subject and vantage point by the viewmakers who had preceded them.

By 1860 however, photography in Rome was ripe for change. The pictorial vedute tradition was coming to an end. Photographers, responding to the camera’s objectivity, began to focus on the understructure, on fragments, on the juxtaposition of historical layers, in short, on all that existed in between the oft-photographed ruins and basilicas. Though only anticipating “street photography,” some photographers trained their cameras on the level of the street.

This change was catalyzed in part by commission work focused on close-up documentation and preservation. John Henry Parker, an eccentric amateur archaeologist from Oxford, set out to record photographically all existing vestiges of ancient Rome before they were further threatened by the encroachment of population and modernity in the city. No longer aimed at the traditional tourist trade, these images would prove useful to historians, architects and artists.

Carlo Baldassare Simelli (1811–77) worked for Parker, who set up an office in Rome and published many volumes of photographically illustrated work. Simelli had close contacts with the group of largely French photographers who met at the Café Greco. Many of the images in this exhibition also bear the stamp of AdB, A(driano?) de Bonis, who blind-stamped or ink-stamped the back of his prints. From the body of identifiable work by Simelli, one can see that de Bonis was heavily influenced by him and probably worked on sub-commission by Simelli for Parker. Published prints by Parker can sometimes be identified to be the work of Simelli or de Bonis.

Subsequently, Eugenio Chauffourier (1845–1919) acquired Simelli and de Bonis negatives, which he printed and re-labeled, in addition to producing his own images of similar style. Many of the photographs known today and attributed to Chauffourier are in fact the work of the two earlier photographers.

Edmond Lebel (1834–1908) was a French artist from Amiens who came to Rome in 1860–63 and back again in 1870. He was a pensioner at the Villa Medici. While in Rome, he collected photographs by Giacomo Caneva (1813–65) as well as by Simelli and de Bonis, many of which are exhibited in this show. He was clearly influenced by these photographers in his own camera work, which he used as artist’s studies for his genre oil paintings.

Though documentary in design, many of these photographs provide a fresh and modern look at 19th century Rome. By viewing from cobblestone level and focusing on skeletal architectural details and the round of daily life, often allowing people and horse-drawn carts and carriages to move through the field, these freewheeling photographers give the modern-day viewer a more realistic glimpse of everyday life in Rome in the second half of the 19th century. Empowered by their artistic urges, these photographers created compositions which stray from the simple documentary records sought by their commissioner, and reflect a fresh sensitivity registered by the camera to the scene before it. Originally topographical in intent, these photographs often challenge even the cognoscenti of Rome to identify where they were taken. Their commercial value in photography dealers’ shops was certainly small, as is evidenced by their relative rarity in surviving 19th-century tourists’ albums. By drilling down on detail and emphasizing muscular form, these images anticipate a modernist sensitivity well ahead of their time.

Notably excluded from earlier photographic work, people show up frequently in these images, reflecting a conscious decision on the photographers’ part to include them as essential elements of the landscape. These figures are not models or props, but appear to be ordinary citizens resting or working. The ghost figures resulting in these pre-instantaneous photographs often produce a sense of motion that is more realistic and evocative. Even when not in view, the photographs often focus on elements that suggest that someone has just left or is about to step into the frame.

Although Rome is a city of hills, making stairs a necessary means of getting around, the frequency with which steps show up in these photographers’ work is uncanny. Stairways are often the primary focus of these images or an essential element in their composition. Clearly, the steps of Rome serve as a metaphor for its history, its people and their labors, as well as its allure and beauty for these camera artists.

Though work-a-day in their feel and purpose, these photographs, even a century and a half later, transmit to us a sense of intimacy and candor for the most part unavailable in other Italian work of this period. They walk the tight-rope of documentation on the one hand and art on the other, while deferring to the attractiveness of Rome itself. This group of images allows us to “step in” to a Rome which was about to step out of the pre-industrial age.

Bruce Lundberg
1 November 2006

A note on the photographic and print attributions

All of these photographs are printed from glass collodion negatives and most are albumen prints. Some of the earlier (1858–60) A. de Bonis photographs are salt or lightly albumen-coated salt prints. These are affixed to early de Bonis studio mounts with black ink “AdB” stamps on verso.

When the print is known to be by the photographer, his name is given. When the image is known to be printed but not necessarily taken by the photographer, it is called “print.” Photographs identified but not definitely known to be by the photographer are designated “attributed.” A print by one studio but from an earlier photographer’s negative is identified whenever possible.

1. VILLA ALDOBRANDINI, FRASCATI
Chauffourier, Gustavio Eugenio, print, attributed to earlier Simelli negative.

The detail of a sculpted wall, hanging limbs of trees, and glimpses of the Villa Aldobrandini in Frascati beyond in soft focus make for a strikingly beautifully composition. Though documenting the architectural details of the villa’s perimeter wall facing the town, the photographer has clearly resolved to record a coherent experience. The heraldic devices worked into the masonry and wrought iron grill work refer to the Pamphili family, who came into possession of the Villa Aldobrandini in 1647. Prior to this, the grounds of the villa had been open to the public, but the Pamphili enclosed the property. This portion of the perimeter wall was executed in 1710, following the designs of Carlo Bizzaccheri.

2. ARCHITECTURAL FRAGMENTS
Chauffourier, Gustavio Eugenio, print of an earlier Simelli negative

In an uncharacteristic and appealing photograph, Simelli has confronted the question of whether these column fragments are more seductive to us lying in pieces than in a reconstructed state. Much of the attraction and humanistic challenge that Rome provided to travelers in the early Renaissance are encompassed in this view. The fluted fragments along with a Corinthian capital document photographically the appeal that spawned the neoclassicism and later Roman Romanticism seen so often in artists’ drawings and paintings. In contrast with earlier travel, topographical and documentary photography, this image reflects the changed sensibility and focus of 19th-century artists, academics and tourists to a new world order and especially a post-Risorgimento Italian political reality.

3. THE ALTAR OF AIUS LOCUTIUS ON THE PALATINE
Chauffourier, Gustavio Eugenio (attributed)

As abstract and Post-Modernist as a Robert Frank photograph, this image of a lonely Roman altar in its recently excavated pit stirs one’s emotions. A fragile young tree skeleton, the dome of SS. Luca e Martina, and Roman ruins in soft focus loom behind and evoke the timelessness of the scene. Both the thrill and the banality of archeological discovery are felt by the viewer. Though documentary in intent, the photograph captures the artistry of a well-crafted image. The Altar of Aius Locutius was found in 1838 near the western corner of the Palatine Hill, directly below the Temple of Cybele. The photograph was taken around 1865, when the altar was still in situ. It was subsequently removed to the Palatine Antiquarium, where it is currently on display. The archaic inscription on the travertine altar (SEI DEO SEI DEIVAE SAC) is dedicated to an unknown divinity, “whether male or female.” In the case of local genii, this formula prudently avoided the possibility of any error. It is worth noting that the altar also appears in J.H. Parker’s collection of archaeological photographs.

4. LION FOUNTAIN, PIAZZA DEL POPOLO
Chauffourier, Gustavio Eugenio, print

In 1823, as part of his general reorganization of the Piazza del Popolo, the architect Giuseppe Valadier embellished the central obelisk with four lion fountains, one of which is the subject of this photograph. Each lion rests on top of a stepped pyramidal base and jets water into circular basins aligned with the diagonals of the obelisk. The inspiration for this arrangement probably came from the twin lion fountains placed at the bottom of Michelangelo’s ramp leading to the Piazza del Campidoglio. Drilling down on this sculpted lion spewing water, the photographer, focusing on texture, detail and steps, has again chosen to bring the viewer into the human realm of the person walking on the street.

5. THE SPANISH STEPS
de Bonis, A(driano)

The Spanish Steps, constructed between 1723 and 1728 following the designs of Francesco de’Sanctis, constitute the most important 18th-century addition to the urban armature of Rome. They effect a graceful transition between the early 16th-century streets occupying the flood plain of the Tiber below and the radiating system of streets Pope Sixtus V laid out at the end of the century on the hills above. The steps are centered on the commanding profile of the church of SS.ma Trinità dei Monti on the hill above. In this unusual abstract composition, however, the viewpoint is from a landing midway up the stairs, and the church facade, together with the monastery to its north, are only partially visible. On the plinth is a small rug upon which sits a ghost image of a poodle; another ghost image of a man lounges against the retaining wall farther back.

6. SS.MA TRINITA DEI MONTI, STAIRCASE
de Bonis, A(driano)

De Bonis chose to shoot in morning sun to create this abstract view of the steps leading up to SS.ma Trinità dei Monti. The shadows thrown by ancient capitals and tablets atop the balustrade direct us to the massive plinth of the obelisk surmounting the Spanish Steps, whose own shadow acts as a sundial.

7. SS.MA TRINITA DEI MONTI, STAIRCASE
Chauffourier, Gustavio Eugenio, print, attributed to earlier De Bonis negative

In this detailed view of the steps in front of the SS.ma Trinità dei Monti, the photographer has waited for a high late-morning sun to bathe the well-worn treads and balusters of the stairway. Though documentary in intention, the photograph emerges as an object of interest and fascination in its own right.

8. THE VILLA MEDICI VIEWED FROM SS.MA TRINITA DEI MONTI
de Bonis, A(driano)

The long view of the cobbled promenade atop the Spanish Steps leading to the Villa Medici is the subject of this photograph. Through a sort of double vision, the photographer has included the full sweep of the steps and the lower facade of SS.ma Trinità dei Monti, thus placing them in their larger context. De Bonis’s uncanny sense of space, camera angle and light are admirably displayed in this photograph. This suite of prints, which moves up and beyond the stairway, is very much in the style of the photographer’s body of work in Rome.

9. VILLIA MEDICI, LOGGIA
de Bonis, A(driano)

De Bonis here frames the garden loggia of the Villa Medici. Rather than encompassing the entire Serlian motif, he directs the lens at the porch itself and more specifically at the stairs that lead up to it. He clearly also enjoys the challenge of contrasting light and dark spaces and maintaining details within them. The projecting porch is nicely balanced by the grass pattern before it and would have been lost if the photographer had framed for a higher angle. In the background can be seen some of the reliefs from the Della Valle collection of antiquities that adorn the garden facade of the villa. Since 1804, the Villa Medici has been the site of the French Academy in Rome and would have served as a particular point of reference for these photographers.