FOTOGRAFARE BISANZIO A CURA DI ANTONIO IACOBINI LIVIA BEVILACQUA CAMPISANO EDITORE 6 Milion Studi e ricerche d’arte bizantina 11 Collana fondata da Fernanda de’ Maffei diretta da Antonio Iacobini 2 in copertina Kalyvia Kouvara (Grecia), Hagios Petros, interno, foto di A. Kingsley Porter, 1923. Firenze, I Tatti, Berenson Library, Byzantine art and architecture photograph collection Nessuna parte di questo libro può essere riprodotta o trasmessa in qualsiasi forma o con qualsiasi mezzo elettronico, meccanico o altro senza l’autorizzazione scritta dei proprietari dei diritti e dell’editore. L’Editore è a disposizione degli aventi diritto per quanto riguarda le fonti iconografiche e letterarie non individuate. Progetto grafico di Gianni Trozzi © Sapienza Università di Roma © copyright 2022 by Campisano Editore Srl 00155 Roma, viale Battista Bardanzellu, 53 Tel +39 06 4066614 campisanoeditore@tiscali.it www.campisanoeditore.it ISBN 978-88-85795-93-8 FOTOGRAFARE BISANZIO ARTE BIZANTINA E DELL’ORIENTE MEDITERRANEO NEGLI ARCHIVI ITALIANI A CURA DI ANTONIO IACOBINI LIVIA BEVILACQUA CAMPISANO EDITORE 4 Associazione Italiana di Studi Bizantini Fotografare Bisanzio Arte bizantina e dell’Oriente mediterraneo negli archivi italiani Atti della XVII Giornata di studi dell’Associazione Italiana di Studi Bizantini Sapienza Università di Roma Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia 15-16 ottobre 2021 Coordinamento scientifico Marcello Barbanera, Livia Bevilacqua, Giovanni Gasbarri Alessandra Guiglia, Antonio Iacobini, Alessandro Taddei In collaborazione con Dipartimento di Scienze dell’Antichità, Polo museale Sapienza Progetto di Ateneo Picturing a Lost Empire. An Archive for Byzantine Monumental Heritage in the Eastern Mediterranean: The Centro di Documentazione di Storia dell’Arte Bizantina, Sapienza Università di Roma Redazione del volume Livia Bevilacqua, Giovanni Gasbarri (coordinamento) Rebecca Amendola, Irene Caracciolo, Francesca Castellani Daniela Fiorentino, Lucrezia Sozzè, Giulia Troncarelli I testi hanno superato la procedura di accettazione per la pubblicazione basata su meccanismi di revisione soggetti a referees terzi. Volume pubblicato con il contributo della Sapienza Università di Roma, Dipartimento di Storia Antropologia Religioni Arte Spettacolo. INDICE XI PREMESSE Gaetano Lettieri, Antonio Rigo XV INTRODUZIONE Antonio Iacobini, Livia Bevilacqua 1 FOTOGRAFARE BISANZIO Antonio Iacobini 17 IL CENTRO DI DOCUMENTAZIONE DI STORIA DELL’ARTE BIZANTINA DELLA SAPIENZA: DAI VIAGGI DI STUDIO ALL’ARCHIVIO DIGITALE Giovanni Gasbarri, Livia Bevilacqua 31 IL PROGETTO SUI MARMI DELLA SANTA SOFIA A COSTANTINOPOLI E IL SUO FONDO FOTOGRAFICO NEL CENTRO DI DOCUMENTAZIONE DI STORIA DELL’ARTE BIZANTINA DELLA SAPIENZA Alessandra Guiglia, Roberta Flaminio 53 UN PRECURSORE: BERNARD BERENSON E BISANZIO NELL’ARCHIVIO DE I TATTI Gabriella Bernardi, Spyros Koulouris 71 SERGIO BETTINI E L’ARTE BIZANTINA. VIAGGI DI RICERCA IN GRECIA E A ISTANBUL NEGLI ANNI TRENTA DEL XX SECOLO: FOTOGRAFIE E APPUNTI DI LAVORO Michela Agazzi 89 FRIEDRICH WILHELM DEICHMANN E BISANZIO NELL’ARCHIVIO FOTOGRAFICO DEL DEUTSCHES ARCHÄOLOGISCHES INSTITUT DI ROMA Ralf Bockmann, Eva Staurenghi 109 BISANZIO NEGLI ARCHIVI DELL’UNIVERSITÀ DI BOLOGNA: DALLA COLLEZIONE GIUSEPPE BOVINI ALL’ARCHIVIO DIGITALE BYZART – BYZANTINE ART AND ARCHAEOLOGY ON EUROPEANA AND ALMA DIGITAL LIBRARY Isabella Baldini, Giulia Marsili VII 8 INDICE 131 ELAIUSSA SEBASTE IN ETÀ TARDOANTICA E BIZANTINA. L’ARCHIVIO DI UNA MISSIONE ARCHEOLOGICA DELLA SAPIENZA IN TURCHIA Marcello Barbanera, Alessandro Taddei 149 L’OLTREMARE CROCIATO NELL’ARCHIVIO FOTOGRAFICO CADEI DELLA SAPIENZA. LE MISSIONI DI STUDIO DAL 1990 AL 1993 Pio Francesco Pistilli 165 CRETA E LE ISOLE DEL DODECANESO ATTRAVERSO LE FOTOGRAFIE DI GIUSEPPE GEROLA CONSERVATE A VENEZIA E A TRENTO (1900-1912) Spiridione Alessandro Curuni 179 FOTOGRAFARE COME ‘SPECCHIO’. L’UNIVERSITÀ DELLA TUSCIA NELLA CARIA E NELLA CAPPADOCIA BIZANTINA Maria Andaloro con Paola Pogliani 203 L’ARTE BIZANTINA IN ITALIA NEI DOCUMENTI DELL’ARCHIVIO CENTRALE DELLO STATO: UNA MAPPA Andrea Paribeni, Silvia Pedone 221 GLI ARCHIVI DELLA PITTURA RUPESTRE IN PUGLIA: DA ALBA MEDEA A COSIMO DAMIANO FONSECA Manuela De Giorgi 241 ERNST KITZINGER E I MOSAICI BIZANTINI IN SICILIA. IL FONDO FOTOGRAFICO “FOSCO MARAINI” DELL’ISTITUTO CENTRALE PER IL CATALOGO E LA DOCUMENTAZIONE TRA ESECUZIONE E ARCHIVIAZIONE DEGLI SCATTI Benedetta Cestelli Guidi VIII INDICE 257 IL MEDITERRANEO BIZANTINO NEI FONDI FOTOGRAFICI DEL PONTIFICIO ISTITUTO ORIENTALE DI ROMA Vincenzo Ruggieri 277 LA SCUOLA TORINESE DI PAOLO VERZONE E L’ARCHITETTURA BIZANTINA IN ASIA MINORE NEI FONDI FOTOGRAFICI DEL POLITECNICO DI TORINO Chiara Devoti, Enrica Bodrato 297 ADRIANO ALPAGO NOVELLO E IL CENTRO STUDI E DOCUMENTAZIONE DELLA CULTURA ARMENA Stefano Riccioni, Beatrice Spampinato 317 L’ARCHIVIO FOTOGRAFICO DEL PROGETTO GEORGIA AL KUNSTHISTORISCHES INSTITUT DI FIRENZE Annette Hoffmann, Gerhard Wolf 335 BISANZIO E L’ORIENTE CRISTIANO NEL FONDO MONNERET DE VILLARD DELL’ISTITUTO NAZIONALE DI ARCHEOLOGIA E STORIA DELL’ARTE Silvia Armando, Massimo Pomponi 359 DALLA CAMPAGNA DI SALVATAGGIO DELL’UNESCO ALL’ARCHAEOLOGICAL ATLAS OF COPTIC LITERATURE : I MONUMENTI CRISTIANI DELL’EGITTO E DELLA NUBIA NEGLI ARCHIVI FOTOGRAFICI DELLE MISSIONI EGITTOLOGICHE DELLA SAPIENZA Paola Buzi 373 397 ABSTRACTS INDICE DEI NOMI E DEI LUOGHI a cura di Rebecca Amendola IX 10 ADRIANO ALPAGO NOVELLO E IL CENTRO STUDI E DOCUMENTAZIONE DELLA CULTURA ARMENA Stefano Riccioni, Beatrice Spampinato La recente donazione di un fondo documentario appartenente ad Adriano Alpago Novello, proveniente dalla Villa di Frontin 1 (residenza estiva di famiglia), grazie alla generosità dei figli 2, ci consente di presentare, arricchito, il progetto collegato alla formazione di un archivio di storia dell’arte e architettura che raccolga e ordini i documenti depositati presso il Centro Studi e Documentazione della Cultura Armena (CSDCA). 1. LE ORIGINI DELL’ARCHIVIO DI STORIA DELL’ARTE E ARCHITETTURA Per ricostruire la storia della documentazione artistica e architettonica (con la raccolta fotografica annessa) conservata presso il CSDCA, bisogna risalire all’attività di Adriano Alpago Novello e del ‘gruppo di Milano’, che egli raccolse attorno a sé quando insegnava architettura al Politecnico di Milano, composto da: Harutiun Kasangian (ingegnere), Armen Manoukian (architetto) e Herman Vahramian (architetto e grafico). Questo gruppo partecipò alle missioni in Armenia dal 1967 al 1970 per studiare l’architettura dei suoi monumenti 3. La prima campagna di studi contemplò la documentazione di circa 55 complessi dislocati entro i confini dell’Armenia sovietica. Ne abbiamo una testimonianza in un faldone appartenente all’archivio di Adriano Alpago Novello contenente il materiale preparatorio alla prima missione in Armenia, nell’anno 1967. Le chiese sono organizzate secondo un ordine alfabetico, con piante e disegni ripresi in gran parte da Utudjian 4 e dalla monografia di Tokarskij sull’architettura armena 5, della quale di fatto estrae, ritagliandole, solo le piante delle chiese. Ogni chiesa è oggetto di una scheda organizzata secondo lo schema: “Monumento; Epoca; Luogo; Dimensioni; Forma e descrizione; Bibliografia”. È evidente qui un rigoroso metodo filologico, basato sulla tassonomia e sulla classificazione dei fenomeni morfologici, che potremmo definire positivista, sull’esempio delle opere e degli insegnamenti di Paolo Verzone a Torino. Nell’autunno del 1969, partì la seconda missione. Il gruppo di architetti affiancato dal fotografo milanese Giovanni Nogaro visitò e documentò 22 monumenti sempre dislocati entro i confini sovietici; nel 1970 altre tre missioni coinvolsero diversi gruppi di ricerca (Alpago Novello prese parte solo a una di queste con Armen Manoukian e Herman Vahramian). Tutte le missioni sono state finanziate dalla Fondazione della famiglia Manoukian e si sono svolte con l’invito ufficiale 297 315 316 STEFANO RICCIONI, BEATRICE SPAMPINATO della Repubblica dell’Armenia SSR . Esse ampliarono l’orizzonte di interesse degli studi alle regioni dell’Armenia Storica con esplorazioni in Anatolia e Cilicia 6. Tra il 1973 e il 1976 le missioni di Alpago Novello e Enzo Hybsch si concentrarono soprattutto sul patrimonio dell’allora Georgia sovietica e dell’Iran settentrionale, gettando le basi per una collaborazione ufficiale con l’Università Nazionale dell’Iran, che verrà sottoscritta da ambo i ministeri esteri nel 1978 7. Nel 1976, a Milano, Adriano Alpago Novello fondò il Centro Studi e Documentazione della Cultura Armena, di cui dirigerà le attività fino alla sua morte (2005), affiancato da Boghos Levon Zekiyan (Università Ca’ Foscari di Venezia), Giulio Ieni (Politecnico di Torino), Armen Zarian (Università di Erevan) e in un secondo momento Gabriella Uluhogian (Università di Bologna), con il duplice obiettivo di produrre materiale di alto interesse scientifico e di divulgarne i contenuti ad un pubblico ampio, scongiurando così il rischio di una circolazione delle competenze scientifiche limitata entro una ristretta cerchia di specialisti 8. Nel Centro, inoltre, confluì l’importante materiale di ricerca: fotografie, piante, traduzioni della storiografia in lingua armena, così fornendo eccellenti condizioni di lavoro agli specialisti e ai non specialisti. L’attività di questo gruppo è documentata dai “Documenti di architettura armena”, pubblicati dalla Facoltà di Architettura del Politecnico di Milano e dall’Accademia delle Scienze dell’Armenia sovietica, dal 1968 al 1998. L’altro strumento importante del gruppo è la pubblicazione periodica “Ricerca sull’architettura armena”, pubblicata dal 1970 al 1986, dal Politecnico di Milano, Facoltà di Architettura. Nell’anno successivo alla prima spedizione in Armenia, il gruppo milanese organizzò, in ottobre, l’importante mostra fotografica Architettura armena. IV-XVIII secolo, di poco preceduto dal gruppo romano che la fece tra maggio e giugno nelle sale di Palazzo Venezia 9. Con il gruppo romano, infatti, Alpago Novello condivise anche viaggi e percorsi di ricerca. Dalla selezione delle fotografie emerge la particolare attenzione dedicata al rapporto uomo-architettura-ambiente, tema assai caro a Adriano Alpago Novello e da lui ripetuto anche nei discorsi di inaugurazione nelle varie sedi espositive internazionali. Nel marzo del 1992, anche il Centro fu trasferito a Venezia, ospite della Congregazione Armena Mechitarista, alla Loggia del Temanza di Corte Zappa (interamente restaurata dalla famiglia Manoukian, fig. 1), trasferendo da Milano la ricca biblioteca e il materiale d’archivio. Il movente principale era dettato dal desiderio di portare il Centro in un contesto di studi universitari armenistici e orientalistici; la vicinanza ai Padri Mechitaristi deve aver anch’essa avuto un ruolo non marginale nella scelta. 2. L’ARCHIVIO DOCUMENTARIO L’archivio di Adriano Alpago Novello è conservato presso la Loggia del Temanza. Un primo sommario spoglio della documentazione è stato realizzato da Beatrice Spampinato, che ha iniziato il riordino e lo studio. Manuela Da Cortà, dal canto suo, si è occupata del materiale relativo alle ricerche di Alpago Novello in Siria, nell’ambito di una tesi di laurea dal titolo Alpago Novello e la Siria, che sarà a breve pubblicata con l’editore Il Poligrafo. Le carte documentano l’attività di ricerca di Alpago Novello dal 1965 fino ai primi anni Novanta, 298 ADRIANO ALPAGO NOVELLO E IL CENTRO STUDI E DOCUMENTAZIONE DELLA CULTURA ARMENA 1. Venezia, Corte Zappa, Loggia del Temanza, sede del Centro Studi e Documentazione della Cultura Armena. Archivio CSDCA in corrispondenza con il trasferimento della sede del Centro a Venezia. La prima ispezione dei circa 25 faldoni che costituiscono l’archivio documentario ha consentito di individuare alcune macro tematiche entro cui suddividere il materiale: 1. Attività amministrative del Centro Studi e Documentazione della Cultura Armena. 2. Documentazione riguardo la mostra Architettura armena. 3. Materiale riguardo i cinque Simposi Internazionali di Arte Armena. 4. Missioni e attività di ricerca in Iran. 5. Carteggi e appunti vari di Adriano Alpago Novello. 6. Materiale vario sulle mostre riguardanti vari aspetti della cultura armena. 7. Missioni di Adriano Alpago Novello. 8. Documentazione di studio sull’architettura georgiana. 9. Rassegna stampa su questioni di attualità in Armenia. 10. Studi tipologici di architettura e storia dell’arte. Come dicevamo in apertura, la documentazione, con la disponibilità dei familiari, è stata recentemente accorpata al materiale di studio personale dislocato tra Belluno e Trichiana, proveniente dalla Villa di Frontin e giunto in agosto al Centro. Materiale che non è stato mai preso in considerazione prima d’ora. 299 317 318 STEFANO RICCIONI, BEATRICE SPAMPINATO 3. L’ARCHIVIO FOTOGRAFICO Il trasferimento dell’archivio/fototeca nella nuova sede del Centro ha considerevolmente aumentato anche il materiale fotografico già accumulato in circa vent’anni di attività e durante le numerose missioni, che comprende più di 10000 diapositive di monumenti storici, numerosi negativi, stampe fotografiche (b/n e a colori) e rilievi grafici. Stiamo lavorando ad un’accurata catalogazione e una digitalizzazione, anche ai fini di una pubblicazione in rete open source. La collezione di fotografie, diapositive e negativi fotografici, risalenti in gran parte al periodo sovietico realizzate dal gruppo di studiosi raccolti attorno ad Alpago Novello mostra immagini di siti storici e monumenti armeni (ma non solo), alcuni di questi attualmente inaccessibili perché danneggiati, restaurati o non più esistenti, che sono strumenti fondamentali per la conoscenza della cultura architettonica e figurativa del Caucaso meridionale. La recente acquisizione dalla Villa di Frontin comprende 26 scatole che contengono materiale documentario, bibliografico e fotografico, quest’ultimo, in particolare, costituisce la parte più cospicua con circa 8800 tra diapositive e fotografie. Secondo un primo calcolo approssimativo, la documentazione fotografica relativa alla cultura bizantina contiene: 500 diapositive della Russia bizantina, 100 dell’architettura bizantina in Italia, 300 di Grecia e isole del Mediterraneo orientale; ai quali si aggiungono 170 negativi della Grecia bizantina, ma vi sono anche i 380 negativi riguardanti la Siria, 250 diapositive dell’Etiopia e più di 1000 negativi dedicati all’Armenia 10. Il lavoro di catalogazione e scansione del materiale fotografico (escluso il materiale recentemente acquisito) è stato avviato anche in passato con due campagne: 1. Dagli anni Novanta ai primi del Duemila Gianclaudio Macchiarella e Gaianè Casnati iniziarono la schedatura dei rilievi e scansione del materiale fotografico; 2. tra il 2010 e il 2015, con la partecipazione del Centro al progetto europeo Armeniaca si intraprese la digitalizzazione di parte del materiale che avrebbe dovuto contribuire alla raccolta in un unico database open source del materiale fotografico posseduto dai maggiori studiosi europei del patrimonio armeno. Tuttavia, i risultati auspicati non sono stati raggiunti 11. Le potenzialità scientifiche del lavoro di riordino e catalogazione sono evidenti, ad esempio nel confronto tra le fotografie del tempio di Garni che ne documentano lo stato di conservazione nel 1969, prima dei lavori di restauro, e poi di nuovo nel 1975 a restauro terminato. L’Archivio contiene, inoltre, documenti scritti e immagini che sono strettamente collegati all’approccio metodologico di Alpago Novello. Lo studioso considerava l’interazione uomoterritorio come un rapporto biunivoco nel quale, da una parte il territorio condiziona l’uomo e il suo modo di vivere e dall’altra l’uomo tende a sovrapporsi e a trasformare il territorio. Alpago riteneva di poter superare questo rapporto meccanico, considerando l’inclinazione dell’uomo ad attribuire al territorio significati di ordine metafisico, “caricando alcuni particolari elementi naturali di valenze simboliche, dando loro un significato ben più vasto […]. Ovvero quando la natura non vale più in quanto materia, ma diventa il concretarsi di un’idea, di un simbolo” 12. [SR] 300 ADRIANO ALPAGO NOVELLO E IL CENTRO STUDI E DOCUMENTAZIONE DELLA CULTURA ARMENA 4. IL FONDO ARCHIVISTICO, LA LOGGIA DEL TEMANZA E ALPAGO NOVELLO 4.1. Un archivio personale La recente dislocazione del materiale documentario personale di Adriano Alpago Novello a Venezia ha consentito di avviare una riflessione riguardo l’ordinamento, l’inventariazione e la catalogazione futuri dell’universitas rerum. Rispettando la storia dei due distinti corpora documentari oggi uniti, e non ri-uniti, è bene specificare la natura differente della raccolta documentaria ‘storica’, da quella ‘donata’ dalla famiglia Alpago Novello. La raccolta storica è da sempre conservata presso la sede del Centro ed è costituita da documenti concernenti la nascita e lo sviluppo dell’ente stesso, con cui le carte hanno condiviso nel 1992 il trasferimento da Via Melzi d’Eril a Milano, alla Loggia del Temanza in Corte Zappa a Venezia. Il materiale documentario e fotografico, ivi contenuto, è il ‘residuo’ lasciato dalle personalità che in quarant’anni di attività hanno gravitato attorno al Centro. In passato, in particolare sulla sezione iconografica del fondo, è stato costruito un servizio di studio utile alla realizzazione dei progetti editoriali e allo sviluppo delle linee di ricerca promosse dall’ente (fig. 2) 13; immediatamente accessibile da parte degli studiosi e utilizzata come fonte complementare, se non alternativa, a quella bibliografico-documentaria, la raccolta di fotografie frutto delle periodiche missioni di studio nell’Armenia sovietica, è da ritenersi quale ‘nucleo storico’ 14 del fondo fotografico nella sua interezza (fig. 3). La raccolta donata dalla famiglia Alpago Novello è costituita invece dall’archivio personale di un architetto, docente, e ricercatore. I documenti e le fotografie afferiscono infatti a: progetti architettonici oggetto di studio, materiali riguardanti l’attività accademico-didattica, bibliografie e appunti collezionati in preparazione a pubblicazioni, talvolta indipendenti e talaltra correlate all’attività del Centro. Tra le carte e le immagini dei faldoni, queste tre macroaree tendono ad incrociarsi continuamente e a costruire trame di ricerca trasversali. Come già visto, la geografia è estremamente ampia 15. Da un primo spoglio dei contenuti emerge una coerenza di fondo tra le due raccolte, ovvero un vincolo di destinazione comune ad entrambe, che ne giustifica l’assemblaggio, e che riconosciamo nella personalità stessa di Adriano Alpago Novello. Nel caso del corpus storico, in cui si legge la trama delle attività del CSDCA e delle varie personalità operanti per e con l’ente, Alpago Novello è il vincolo in qualità di fondatore, direttore ma anche promotore e coordinatore delle iniziative; mentre, nel caso del corpus donato, Alpago Novello ha prodotto e ricevuto il materiale, il cui accumulo è conseguentemente vincolato alle sue attività. Possiamo quindi parlare di un fondo archivistico personale 16 costituito da materiale di natura documentaria, bibliografica e fotografica, coerentemente dislocato presso la sede del CSDCA, ente a sua volta legato, fin dall’atto di fondazione, alla personalità di Adriano Alpago Novello. Appurata la coerenza del contenuto nella sua totalità, del ‘contenitore’ rispetto al contenuto, e viceversa, procediamo ora con la descrizione dello stato attuale di conservazione del materiale e delle azioni che si prevede di realizzare al fine di rendere nuovamente fruibile il fondo fotografico. 301 319 320 STEFANO RICCIONI, BEATRICE SPAMPINATO 2. Vałaršapat (Armenia), chiesa di Surb Hṙip‘sime, vista dall’interno della nicchia angolare sud orientale e della cupola. Archivio CSDCA 4.2. Lo stato attuale di conservazione e il progetto di valorizzazione dell’archivio Il nucleo storico fotografico è costituito da diapositive oggi disposte in custodie di plastica, a loro volta sistemate in scatole di cartone e ordinate su scaffali di metallo. Le diapositive sono raccolte secondo un criterio tematico-topografico, ogni scatola ha una propria etichettatura che riporta le intitolazioni di chiese e monasteri e i corrispettivi toponimi; talvolta le denominazioni dei soggetti fotografati sono ripetute anche sul telaietto delle diapositive stesse. L’ordinamento risale ad un primo progetto di scansione e schedatura delle diapositive, attivato nell’anno accademico 2000-2001 17. Oltre alle fotografie scattate durante le campagne di studio succedutesi tra gli anni Sessanta e Ottanta del secolo scorso (figg. 4-5), esiste poi un ingente 302 ADRIANO ALPAGO NOVELLO E IL CENTRO STUDI E DOCUMENTAZIONE DELLA CULTURA ARMENA 3. Ganjasar (Nagorno Karabakh), monastero, chiesa di Surb Hovhannes Mkrtič‘, particolare decorativo del tamburo esterno. Archivio CSDCA numero di disegni ed eliografie che documentano il dettaglio delle piante e delle sezioni degli alzati (figg. 6-7), e un gruppo di fotografie storiche giunte presso il Centro probabilmente tramite le corrispondenze con studiosi internazionali (fig. 8). I contenuti già scansionati non sono liberamente accessibili e mancano i servizi di base per la consultazione degli originali. Il fondo donato dalla famiglia Alpago Novello è stato disposto in scatole di cartone riunendo materiale fotografico, documentario e bibliografico nel rispetto di un criterio di coerenza tematica e prossimità fisica dei materiali, così come rinvenuti nella Villa di Frontin da Manuela Da Cortà e da chi scrive, con l’aiuto di Chiara Alpago Novello, figlia di Adriano. Per quel che riguarda il materiale fotografico, le diapositive sono per lo più ordinate in appositi contenitori di 303 321 322 STEFANO RICCIONI, BEATRICE SPAMPINATO 4. Noravank‘ (Armenia), chiesa di Surb Grigor Lusaworič‘, altare. Archivio CSDCA plastica con rispettiva etichettatura quasi sempre significativa dell’effettivo contenuto, i negativi sono disposti in buste di carta con appunti parlanti, mentre numerose fotografie sciolte intervallano appunti o più raramente sono collezionate in album di cartone. Il tutto è stato oggetto di uno spoglio generale ai fini della redazione di una panoramica dell’esistente; ne risulta un ordinamento secondo criteri di varia natura: tipologico (es. “le croci”), geografico (es. “Etiopia”), tematico (es. “arte classica”), o ancora criteri personali di selezione in occasione di convegni, lezioni o pubblicazioni. Il progetto di trasformazione delle due raccolte in un unico archivio adeguatamente 304 ADRIANO ALPAGO NOVELLO E IL CENTRO STUDI E DOCUMENTAZIONE DELLA CULTURA ARMENA 5. Noravank‘ (Armenia), Surb Astvacacin, dettaglio decorativo esterno. Archivio CSDCA inventariato, catalogato, e consultabile, permetterà di individuare nella fototeca una sezione speciale del Centro Studi e Documentazione della Cultura Armena, ma direttamente legata, sia per il suo trascorso storico sia per le attività correnti, all’Università Ca’ Foscari di Venezia. Inoltre, una volta messo in rete tramite una piattaforma open source, il fondo archivistico potrà tessere continui legami con altri archivi nazionali 18 e internazionali 19. Da una prima riflessione sulle strategie di trattamento delle informazioni per un’utenza internazionale, specialistica e non, è stato possibile stilare un’ipotesi di schedatura. Le voci sono state ponderate sulla base di problematiche specifiche riscontrate nella ricerca di immagini sul 305 323 324 STEFANO RICCIONI, BEATRICE SPAMPINATO patrimonio caucasico, nonché sulla base dello studio di buone pratiche di archivi fotografici sempre riguardanti questa specifica area geografica 20. a) Soggetto. Dedicazione o toponimo attuale in lingua originale; dedicazione o toponimo storico (se differente da quello attuale); rispettiva traslitterazione americana; rispettiva traslitterazione scientifica 21. b) Data di esecuzione. c) Autore della fotografia. d) Edizione e eventuali riferimenti di pubblicazione. e) Descrizione storico-artistica del soggetto, in progressione dal generale al particolare. f ) Bibliografia e sitografia relativa al soggetto. g) Geolocalizzazione. 6. Sezione del prospetto della chiesa di Surb Hovhannes di Sorhul (Iran). Archivio CSDCA 8. Statua del Re Gagik‘ proveniente da Ani, fotografia di A. Vruyr, 1907. Archivio CSDCA 306 ADRIANO ALPAGO NOVELLO E IL CENTRO STUDI E DOCUMENTAZIONE DELLA CULTURA ARMENA 7. Alzato della chiesa di Surb Georg, Art‘ik (Armenia). Archivio CSDCA Nella compilazione di questo standard di schedatura si è scelto di concentrare l’attenzione sul contesto in cui la fotografia è stata eseguita e sulla descrizione del soggetto fotografato, ovvero su quei metadati forniti dall’immagine e dall’apparato documentario ad essa correlato, che ci consentono di ricostruire il passato del soggetto. Affinché venga garantita una puntuale compilazione delle informazioni che si intende fornire, sarà quindi necessario uno studio iconografico, documentario e bibliografico, che si curi di limitare al minimo le possibilità di dispersione di informazioni non considerate dalla presente catalogazione e di aspetti che potenzialmente potrebbero essere storicizzati nel tempo. Il mantenimento di un dialogo attivo tra la biblioteca, i documenti e le fotografie nel condurre le operazioni di catalogazione e ordinamento, la garanzia di continuità del legame storico tra il materiale e il Centro, e la fornitura da parte di quest’ultimo dei servizi di base per una fruibilità in linea e in loco del fondo, consentirà di accrescere la rilevanza dell’archivio stesso. 4.3. I valori primario e secondario del fondo fotografico La schedatura proposta affida un valore sociale ben preciso all’archivio, conferendo alle immagini il ruolo di documento, utile principalmente a storici e storici dell’arte interessati allo studio del patrimonio culturale, paesaggistico e monumentale nel raggio geografico alpaghiano. In generale, si riconosce alla pratica archivistica il potere di conferire una vocazione sociale alla raccolta, che in questo specifico caso sarà armonizzata alle finalità dell’ente e all’attività della 307 325 326 STEFANO RICCIONI, BEATRICE SPAMPINATO 9. Ani (Turchia), chiesa georgiana, fotografia di A. Vruyr, 1907 ca. Archivio CSDCA 10. Ani (Turchia), chiesa georgiana, fotografia di A. Alpago Novello, 1970. Archivio CSDCA 308 ADRIANO ALPAGO NOVELLO E IL CENTRO STUDI E DOCUMENTAZIONE DELLA CULTURA ARMENA 11. Ani (Turchia), chiesa georgiana, fotografia di B. Spampinato, 2021 personalità intestataria dell’archivio, consentendo ai fruitori l’interpretazione e l’utilizzo del documento fotografico per uno studio di natura storica dei soggetti rappresentati, che conduca alla conoscenza, alla divulgazione e alla conservazione degli stessi 22. L’ordine archivistico, nel concentrarsi sul ‘valore secondario’ del documento, ovvero il significato che hanno per noi oggi le immagini fotografiche, non deve però oscurare del tutto quello che è il ‘valore primario’, ovvero il significato che le fotografie hanno avuto per chi le ha scattate e che è leggibile incrociando fonti documentarie e iconografiche 23. A seguito di una prima analisi delle fotografie e dei documenti riguardanti le missioni nell’Armenia sovietica, il potenziale scientifico del presente archivio è immediatamente intuibile: lo strumento più immediato per esemplificare il peso informativo che possono avere per noi oggi queste fotografie, è la comparazione con immagini odierne dello stesso soggetto (figg. 9-11). Gli scatti che documentano il patrimonio medievale armeno o georgiano di epoca sovietica, se collocate in prospettiva storica, permettono di ricostruire le stratificazioni monumentali e paesaggistiche dell’area e possono essere utili per valutare interventi di restauro passato o per progettarne di futuri. Passando ora al valore primario della raccolta, occorre notare come la fotografia abbia 309 327 328 STEFANO RICCIONI, BEATRICE SPAMPINATO 12. Ganjasar (Nagorno Karabakh), monastero, chiesa di Surb Hovhannes Mkrtič‘, dettaglio decorativo della scalinata interna. Archivio CSDCA accompagnato in modo preponderante tutto il lavoro di Alpago Novello. La sensibilità per l’immagine fotografata è parte dell’eredità lasciatagli dal padre Alberto, le cui fotografie di opere di guerra del bellunese e di strade militari risalenti agli anni della Prima guerra mondiale sono di particolare importanza, sia da un punto di vista estetico, che storico; la collezione è stata infatti donata dallo stesso Adriano alla Fondazione Giovanni Angelini e Centro Studi sulla Montagna di Belluno 24. Notiamo poi come per la seconda e la terza missione di studi nell’Armenia sovietica e in Turchia, rispettivamente nel 1969 e nel 1970, l’architetto coinvolse il fotografo professionista Giovanni Edoardo Nogaro nelle campagne di studio; questa nota testimonia la convinzione del ruolo centrale conferito all’immagine fotografata, tanto nel suo significato documentario, quanto nelle sue qualità estetiche. Infine, gli stessi appunti dello studioso sono spesso semplicemente delle successioni di fotografie scattate di suo pugno, immagini fotocopiate da manuali, schizzi che spesso ricalcano fotografie o ancora scatti inviatigli da altri studiosi. L’obiettivo fotografico diventa proprio un terzo occhio che permette ad Alpago Novello di penetrare l’architettura e di tornare su uno stesso monumento per indagare nuove trame di ricerca (fig. 12) 25. 310 ADRIANO ALPAGO NOVELLO E IL CENTRO STUDI E DOCUMENTAZIONE DELLA CULTURA ARMENA Ketelaar individua e definisce una precisa fase precedente l’archiviazione, durante la quale si attua il processo di selezione e di esclusione di determinate narrative dell’archivio 26; come spesso accade, anche nel caso del fondo archivistico di Alpago Novello, le trame volutamente taciute in questa determinata fase raccontano l’interesse primario nei confronti della fotografia. Propongo di seguito alcune tracce per indagare il ‘valore primario’, ovvero il valore che aveva la fotografia per chi l’ha scattata. Questo taglio ci permette di osservare più da vicino, non solo l’interesse di Alpago Novello per la fotografia, ma anche ‘lo scarto’ dell’archivista 27, ovvero quelle informazioni che si tenterà di non disperdere, ma che non trovano collocazione nelle voci dello standard di schedatura previsto e che sono pertanto state private di un preciso valore documentale, poiché escluse dal processo di ‘iscrizione’ 28. 5. FAR PARLARE IL DOCUMENTO FOTOGRAFICO 5.1. La fotografia e lo studio tipologico Come accennato (§3.2), all’interno dei faldoni documentari sono raccolte anche delle fotografie; così come per le targhe delle scatolette contenenti le diapositive, le iscrizioni presenti sulle cartelle indirizzano la lettura nell’indagine di uno o di vari criteri organizzativi adottati progressivamente dallo stesso Alpago Novello. Porre l’attenzione su questi appunti personali complica la ricerca di uno strumento univoco di archiviazione, ma allo stesso tempo svela le narrative tacite dell’archivio. Le diapositive, in genere suddivise secondo un criterio geografico dipendente dalle destinazioni dei viaggi di studio effettuati, sono state nel tempo selezionate per essere ricollocate o duplicate in altre sezioni in funzione di studi tipologici specifici. L’interesse di Alpago Novello si rivolge in particolare agli elementi decorativi degli esterni architettonici come monofore, oculi, losanghe, lunette, portali e meridiane. Se osserviamo per esempio il materiale fotografico contenuto nella cartella dedicata alle losanghe, possiamo formulare alcune considerazioni che danno prova del metodo adottato. Alcune fotografie documentano le decorazioni esterne delle chiese georgiane dove tra XII e XIII secolo il motivo delle due losanghe speculari è estremamente diffuso. Nei casi delle decorazioni a losanghe delle chiese di K’vat’axevi, Ikort’a e Samt’avisi, lo scatto è stato chiaramente pensato in funzione di uno specifico studio tipologico: il soggetto è perfettamente inquadrato nello spazio dell’immagine fotografica, è stato certamente compiuto uno sforzo per poter ottenere un’inquadratura il più possibile frontale del soggetto, e la resa dei particolari è stata calibrata tramite un’attenta chiarezza tonale 29. Alpago Novello colloca in questa cartella, che ha il proprio motivo d’essere proprio nelle decorazioni delle chiese medievali georgiane, una fotografia della superficie esterna della chiesa di S. Basilio ad Arta e un dettaglio della decorazione parietale interna della Moschea Blu di Tabriz, entrambe decorate a losanghe. Alpago Novello ritorna più volte su soggetti fotografati in momenti altri della ricerca e in geografie lontane dalla Georgia; questo esercizio gli consente di individuare degli ‘infra-saperi’ 30 che emergono a posteriori e diventano interessanti a distanza di tempo dal momento di conoscenza diretta del monumento. Una banca dati di fotografie scattate di proprio pugno, facilita l’esercizio di ritorno su determinati monumenti per costruire comparazioni che sconfinino i limiti geografici e costruire 311 329 330 STEFANO RICCIONI, BEATRICE SPAMPINATO 13. Adriano Alpago Novello alla mostra Architettura armena. IV-XVIII secolo. Galleria d’Arte Moderna di Torino, aprilegiugno 1975. Archivio CSDCA serie a cui le fotografie non erano state destinate al momento dello scatto. A queste, nella serie “losanghe”, Alpago Novello aggiunge immagini inviategli da amici e colleghi, come una cartolina ricevuta dalla Tunisia e raffigurante il mausoleo di Kairouan detto di Sidi Sahab e una diapositiva della facciata della cattedrale di Pisa inviatagli da Adriano Peroni. La fotografia acquisisce quindi uno specifico valore informativo per il suo stesso autore: registra delle informazioni che, anche a distanza di tempo, nutrono sempre nuove ricerche comparative. L’insieme delle immagini contenenti il medesimo ‘infra-sapere’ individuato, diventano parte di una serie; all’interno della serie ciascuna foto acquisisce un valore informativo per l’autore, e allo stesso tempo un valore probatorio dell’attività dell’autore per chi, da esterno, ne indaga la ricerca. Sebbene la distinzione tra documento fotografico e fotografia documentaria sia labile 31, la qualità delle immagini, caratterizzate da nitidezza e centralità dei soggetti tipologici selezionati, ci permettono di definire le fotografie reperibili nelle cartelle cartacee quali ‘documenti fotografici’, poiché consentono al fotografo di registrare una determinata informazione e di costruire confronti utili ai fini della propria ricerca, senza che l’obiettivo sia vincolato a specifiche esigenze estetiche. 312 ADRIANO ALPAGO NOVELLO E IL CENTRO STUDI E DOCUMENTAZIONE DELLA CULTURA ARMENA 14. Ganjasar (Nagorno Karabakh), monastero, chiesa di Surb Hovhannes Mkrtič‘, effetti luministici nella cupola. Archivio CSDCA 5.2. La fotografia edita ed esposta Si è già parlato dell’importanza dei progetti editoriali ideati e curati da Alpago Novello e Herman Vahramian per l’Oemme Edizioni, ma l’esercizio di confronto tra le diapositive e le fotografie pubblicate ci permette di constatare un ulteriore dato: la mancanza di interventi di post-produzione sulle fotografie selezionate per la pubblicazione. Gli scatti di Alpago Novello non sono solamente documentari, ma talvolta mostrano chiaramente una certa sensibilità estetica 32, che si rivela fondamentale per la consacrazione della fortuna di progetti editoriali ed 313 331 332 STEFANO RICCIONI, BEATRICE SPAMPINATO espositivi. Ad esempio, la ripresa e la tonalità epidermica ricercate nel fotografare la lanterna del gavit‘ del Monastero di Sałmosavank‘ 33, così come ritratta da Alpago Novello, soddisfano a pieno il fine comunicativo e persuasivo di uno scatto che, attraverso una periodica riproposizione in mostra o in editoria, diventa iconico. L’immagine, ottenuta attraverso una ripresa zenitale in fortunate condizioni di luce, diventa essa stessa il gavit‘ di Sałmosavank‘. I percorsi espositivi ideati e progettati da Alpago Novello 34 consentono, da un lato di divulgare la conoscenza del patrimonio architettonico e scultoreo armeno e georgiano, e dall’altro lato di osservare l’approccio adottato dallo studioso nello studiare il monumento. Passando in rassegna le diapositive d’archivio, ci accorgiamo che il numero di fotografie per ciascun sito non è particolarmente numeroso: Alpago Novello non soffre di bulimia per lo scatto, al contrario sembra già attuare in situ una selezione mirata delle immagini da catturare, prevedendo per ciascuna un utilizzo documentario, divulgativo o persuasivo. I percorsi fotografici sono anche l’occasione per riassumere il processo di osservazione dello spazio e della superficie da parte di Alpago Novello (fig. 13), che non cade mai nella reificazione del monumento, ma ne racconta la spazialità e il rapporto con la luce (fig. 14) scongiurando il rischio di mortificazione dovuto alla bidimensionalità del supporto 35. L’architettura privata del bellunese, quella sacra della Grecia bizantina, o ancora l’architettura popolare del Caucaso meridionale, vengono tutte ugualmente esplorate da Alpago Novello attraverso l’obiettivo fotografico, che è una delle chiavi del suo ‘saper vedere’ e saper ‘far parlare’ le pietre: “Magari i fantasmi delle ville esistono davvero ma bisogna saperli vedere: questo libro potrà forse aiutarci a guardare oltre la pura evidenza delle forme, facendo parlare le pietre” 36. [BS] NOTE Il presente lavoro è stato condotto in stretta collaborazione tra gli autori. 2 Ringraziamo Chiara, Claudia e Alberto Alpago Novello che ci hanno generosamente consentito di riunire la documentazione dello studioso. Il fondo è stato ottenuto anche grazie alla mediazione della dott.ssa Manuela da Cortà e di Minas Lourian, direttore del CSDCA. 3 Si vedano anche: C. Bonardi, Mezzo secolo di studi italiani sull’architettura armena, in “Rassegna degli Armenisti Italiani”, 15, 2014, pp. 13-36; S. Riccioni, Gli studi sull’arte armena a Venezia. Alpago Novello e le prospettive di ricerca, in L’arte armena. Storia critica e nuove prospettive / Studies in Armenian and Eastern Christian Art 2020, a cura di A. Ferrari, S. Riccioni, M. Ruffilli, B. Spampinato, Venezia 2020 (Eurasiatica. Quaderni di studi su Balcani, Anatolia, Iran, Caucaso e Asia Centrale, 16), pp. 205-223. 4 E. Utudjian, Mission technique en Arménie, Paris 1962. 5 N.M. Tokarskij, Architektura Armenij IV-XIV, Yerevan 1946. 6 Per l’elenco dettagliato dei monumenti visitati nelle 1 314 missioni 1967-1972, si veda Ricerca sull’architettura armena. Rendiconti, 2 (1970). 7 Per la Georgia, si veda A. Alpago Novello, T. Hackens, V. Berije, J.L. Dosogne, E. Hybsc, Art and Architecture in Medieval Georgia, Louvain-la-Neuve 1980. Per l’Iran, si veda Ricerca sull’architettura armena. Iran, 17 (1977). 8 Sulle attività del Centro, si veda B.L. Zekiyan, Dalla passione per lo studio allo studio per passione…, in Alpaghian. Raccolta di scritti in onore di Adriano Alpago Novello in occasione del suo 70mo compleanno, a cura di G. Macchiarella, Napoli 2005, Scriptaweb [online]; A. Manoukian, Presenza armena in Italia 1915-2000, Milano 2014, pp. 236-239. 9 Architettura medievale armena, a cura di T. Breccia Fratadocchi, E. Costa, P. Cuneo, catalogo della mostra (Roma, Palazzo di Venezia, 10-30 giugno 1968), Roma 1968. Per un approfondimento rispettivamente, sulla mostra del gruppo di Roma, e su quella del gruppo di Milano, si veda G. Gasbarri, L. Bevilacqua, Percorsi di architettura armena a Roma. Le missioni di studio e la mostra fotografica del 1968 tra premesse critiche e prospettive di ricerca, in L’arte armena, pp. 23-50; B. Spampinato, La mostra itinerante “Architettura armena” (Milano 1968- ADRIANO ALPAGO NOVELLO E IL CENTRO STUDI E DOCUMENTAZIONE DELLA CULTURA ARMENA Erevan 1996). Un caso di studio attraverso le carte d’archivio, ibid., pp. 247-271. 10 Vi sono inoltre più di 1000 diapositive della Valbelluna – relative alla mostra Case rurali, e 100 dell’architettura popolare di Belluno, oltre a 90 tra diapositive e negativi dello Yemen, per citare solo i fondi più consistenti (ma ci sono anche i trulli pugliesi e 300 diapositive dell’America Latina). 11 Al riguardo, si veda F. Villa, In viaggio con l’eclettismo, in “A mari usque ad mare”. Cultura visuale e materiale dall’Adriatico all’India, a cura di M. Guidetti, S. Mondini, Venezia 2012 (Eurasiatica. Quaderni di studi su Balcani, Anatolia, Iran, Caucaso e Asia Centrale, 4), pp. 297-308. 12 A. Alpago Novello, Relazione introduttiva, in Atti del Primo Simposio Internazionale di Arte Armena (Bergamo 28-30 giugno 1975), a cura di G. Ieni, B.L. Zekiyan, Venezia 1978, pp. XVII-XXIII, in part. p. XVIII. 13 La condivisione degli scatti di Alpago Novello, sia con ricercatori operanti in collaborazione con il Centro, sia con studiosi attivi al di fuori delle attività dell’ente, è ben testimoniata dalla pubblicazione della fotografia di Alpago Novello della cupola di Surb Hṙip‘sime in: A. Ter Minassian, A. Zarian, A. Zarian, Vagharshapat, Venezia 1998 (Documenti di Architettura Armena, 23), fig. 48; C. Mango, Architettura bizantina, Milano 1989 (I ed. Milano 1978), tav. X. 14 Per una definizione del ‘nucleo storico’ di un archivio, si veda S. Berselli, L. Gasparini, L’archivio fotografico: manuale per la conservazione e la gestione della fotografia antica e moderna, Milano 2000, passim. 15 Siccome questo materiale non è mai stato oggetto di progetti di catalogazione, non esiste alcuna scansione delle diapositive da poter pubblicare in questa sede. 16 “L’archivio è il complesso di documenti prodotti, ricevuti e accumulati (non sempre in modo ordinato) da un soggetto (nel nostro caso persona o famiglia) nel corso della sua attività. I singoli documenti sono quindi caratterizzati da un vincolo di destinazione comune, che si stabilisce come spontanea conseguenza dell’esercizio delle funzioni proprie del soggetto”. M. Carassi, Qualche consiglio per meglio difendere il tesoro degli archivi storici familiari e personali, Roma 2007, p. 10. 17 Vedi infra, §3. 18 Si pensi ad esempio al rapporto con archivi fotografici nazionali di studiosi che hanno collaborato con lo stesso Adriano Alpago Novello, come quello di Giulio Ieni che ha sede oggi alla Biblioteca di Alessandria e che contiene una sezione specifica dedicata agli studi sul Caucaso; si veda C. Solarino, L’archivio di Giulio Ieni, in Giulio Ieni (19432003): il senso dell’architettura e la maestria della parola, a cura di C. Devoti, Alessandria 2015. O ancora si pensi all’archivio del Centro di Documentazione di Storia dell’Arte Bizantina della Sapienza, si veda G. Gasbarri, L. Bevilacqua in questo volume. Un altro esercizio interessante è il rapporto comparativo con fondi fotografici contemporanei come quello del Kunsthistorisches Institut di Firenze sul patrimonio artistico della Georgia, si veda A. Hoffmann, G. Wolf in questo volume. 19 Si pensi ad esempio all’archivio della Hrant Dink Foundation sul patrimonio delle comunità non islamiche in Anatolia https://hrantdink.org/en/research/archive (11 dicembre 2021), oppure al progetto Georgian Monumental Painting – Electronic Database, Institute of Art History and Theory of the Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University https://arthistory.tsu.ge/murals/ (11 dicembre 2021). 20 La banca dati più esaustiva è sicuramente il sito Virtual Ani (http://www.virtualani.org/, 11 dicembre 2021). Una panoramica dei database già esistenti e la riflessione critica sui rispettivi limiti e potenzialità è stata condotta in collaborazione con Francesca Penoni, che ringrazio. Per un approfondimento, si veda F. Penoni, The Armenian Architectural Heritage in Turkey: The State of Research, in L’arte armena, pp. 167-180. 21 Riteniamo utile suddividere la prima voce in cinque campi con le rispettive specificità per agevolare il reperimento delle informazioni relative ad ogni sito e monumento, sia che la ricerca avvenga attraverso motori di ricerca generici, sia che avvenga attraverso strumenti bibliografici specialistici. Tale attenzione all’espetto linguistico è pensato, inoltre, per tutelare e trasmettere anche il patrimonio intangibile della toponomastica che storicamente connota i siti oggetto di schedatura. 22 Sul potere della pratica archivistica di conferire e togliere valore alle informazioni attraverso la scelta di un determinato ordine sociale a cui è sottoposto il documento, si veda in particolare B. Brothman, Orders of Value: Probing the Theoretical Terms of Archival Practice, in “Archivaria”, 32, 1991, pp. 78-100. Mentre, sulla fotografia come oggetto sociale poiché documento, si veda T. Serena, Le parole dell’archivio fotografico, in “Rivista di Estetica”, 52, 2012, pp. 163-177. 23 Per una definizione di valore primario e secondario dell’immagine fotografica, si veda M.L. Ritzenthaler, D. Vogt-O’Connor, Photographs: Archival Care and Management, Chicago 2008 (I ed. Chicago 2006). 24 E. Cason Angelini, La donazione Alpago-Novello alla Fondazione Giovanni Angelini di Belluno, in “Archivio Storico di Belluno Feltre e Cadore”, 80, 2009, 340-341, pp. 13-16. 25 Mi pare calzante ricordare qui le parole dello stesso Alpago Novello: “A questo proposito mi vengono in mente alcune considerazioni che sono state filo conduttore delle mie ricerche: […] studio dell’architettura non come fine a se stesso, raccolta di immagini da spettacolo o curiosità, ma strumento per capire cosa c’è dentro gli involucri costruiti”: A. Alpago Novello, Nota autobiografica, in “Archivio storico di Belluno Feltre e Cadore”, 80, 2009, 340-341, pp. 5-6. 26 “Archivalisation is the conscious or unconscious choice to consider something worth archiving”: E. Ketelaar, Archivalisation and Archiving, in “Archives & Manuscripts”, 315 333 334 STEFANO RICCIONI, BEATRICE SPAMPINATO 26, 1999, 1, pp. 54-61, in part. p. 57. 27 “For archivists, the principal aim is to achieve a condition of positive order in their domain. This they do through the exclusion of what is deemed to be debris, which constantly threatens to undermine the existing order. Dirt and rubbish continually impinge upon archivists’ desire for order and impede their efforts to maintain it”. Sul concetto di scarto e sul processo ecologico di riutilizzo del materiale di archivio, si veda Brothman, Orders of Value, pp. 80-81. 28 “La definizione di fotografia come iscrizione (leggibilità rivolta ad altri) ci conduce alla soglia dell’archivio: là dove, a partire dal suo ingresso, viene sottoposta alle pratiche di iscrizione, la fotografia che sembra registrare tutta l’apparenza del mondo, si (tra) vestirà di tutta l’apparenza del documento”. Serena, Le parole dell’archivio fotografico, p. 171. Serena si rifà a Brothman per il concetto di linguaggio quale garante dell’ordine e il potere dell’inchiostro di spostare gli oggetti al ‘posto giusto’: Brothman, Orders of Value, p. 80. Sul concetto di iscrizione come quintessenza degli oggetti sociali e sulla connessa teoria del documento, si veda M. Ferraris, Documentalità. Perché è necessario lasciare tracce, Roma-Bari 2019 (I ed. Roma-Bari 2009), in part. pp. 50-53, 298-300. 29 Proprio la chiarezza tonale, insieme alla ricerca di precisione e nitidezza nella resa dei dettagli, caratteristiche che visibilmente ricerca Alpago Novello in queste serie, sono caratteristiche proprie dello ‘stile documentario’ in fotografia. Si veda O. Lugon, Lo stile documentario in fotografia: da August Sander a Walker Evans, 1920-1945, Milano 2008, pp. 139-144. 30 “La Fotografia […] consegna immediatamente quei particolari che costituiscono precisamente il materiale del sapere etnologico […] essa mi permette di accedere a un infra-sapere; mi fornisce una collezione di oggetti parziali e può solleticare in me un certo qual feticismo”. R. Barthes, La camera chiara. Nota sulla fotografia, Torino 2003, p. 30. 31 “Tracciare una linea di demarcazione netta tra l’approccio estetico dello stile documentario e quello legato all’utilità pratica è comunque difficile, e precisamente in questo risiede il problema intorno al quale ruoterà il nostro studio: che cosa separa in fondo le grandi fotografie del genere documentario dai loro omologhi archivistici o giornalistici – o per dirlo con un gioco di parole: dove si colloca la frontiera tra fotografia documentaria e documentazione 316 fotografica?”: Lugon, Lo stile documentario in fotografia, pp. 20-27, in part. p. 20. 32 Da un punto di vista archivistico questa qualità viene definita: “Artifactual value: the usefulness or significance of an object based on its physical or aesthetic characteristics, rather than its intellectual content”: https://dictionary.archivists.org/ (11 dicembre 2021). 33 Lo scatto è stato pubblicato in: Ricerca sull’architettura armena. Rassegna stampa, 1, 1970; 11, 1973; A. Alpago Novello, L’architettura armena tra Oriente e Occidente, in Gli Armeni, a cura di A. Alpago Novello, G. Ieni, A. Manoukian, A. Pensa, G. Uluhogian, B.L. Zekiyan, Milano 1986, pp. 131-191: fig. 83. È stata inoltre inclusa nel percorso espositivo e scelta tra le poche fotografie inserite nel catalogo: Architettura armena. IV-XVIII secolo, catalogo della mostra (Torino, Galleria d’Arte Moderna, 16 aprile-16 maggio 1975), Torino 1975, fig. 21. 34 Tre mostre fotografiche in particolare furono curate direttamente da Alpago Novello: Architettura armena; Architettura georgiana; Khatchkar. 35 “Di fronte a foto d’architettura non ci rendiamo conto che l’architettura stessa non è né un’immagine né un oggetto, ma un ambiente fisico e irriproducibile che possiede un fuori e un dentro, un sopra e un sotto, una tattilità e una variazione luminosa. Il rapporto del nostro corpo con l’architettura, il percorso che noi possiamo fare all’interno di un edificio, la scoperta progressiva dello stesso saranno sempre difficili da trasferire sulla pellicola”: M. Panerai, Testualità e fotografia, in Fototeche e archivi fotografici, a cura di S. Lusini, Prato 1996 (Quaderni della Rivista AFT), pp. 200-203, in part. p. 202. 36 A. Alpago Novello, Riflessioni sulle ville venete della Val Belluna, in La catalogazione delle Ville Venete, a cura di M. Brancaleoni, C. Canato, Venezia 2010, pp. 270-272, in part. p. 271. REFERENZE FOTOGRAFICHE 1-14 (© Archivio Centro Studi e Documentazione della Cultura Armena, Venezia). 8 VIII. Statua del Re Gagik‘ proveniente da Ani, fotografia di A. Vruyr, 1907. Archivio CSDCA 6 ABSTRACTS PHOTOGRAPHING BYZANTIUM Antonio Iacobini The workshop Fotografare Bisanzio is the second event within the research project Picturing a Lost Empire, whose goal is to study and catalogue the photographic collection of the Center for Documentation of Byzantine Art History (CDSAB) at Sapienza. The first public initiative that sprang from this project was the exhibition Picturing a Lost Empire. An Italian Lens on Byzantine Art in Anatolia, 1960-2000, held in Istanbul at the Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations - ANAMED (2018-2020). The photographs of Byzantine Anatolia exhibited in Istanbul were only a small selection of a much larger collection of images (over 35,000 items) now housed in the CDSAB, which resulted from fifty years of research travel by Sapienza Byzantinists in the Eastern Mediterranean. After the Istanbul exhibition, these field trips were the subject of a second exhibition in Rome, titled Byzantine Syria in Photographic Documentation from the Twentieth Century to the Present, held at the Museum of Classical Art at Sapienza, in collaboration with the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut (2018-2019). The expeditions that inspired these two exhibitions were fundamental for several reasons. First, the photographs taken during the trips document the life of monuments which, over time, have often undergone radical changes or even destruction due to natural disasters and wars. Second, these journeys have served as training experience (Bildungsreisen) for young Byzantinists from Rome, who, for generations, have engaged with the artistic testimonies of distant lands and their anthropological context. In the mid-1960s, Géza de Francovich (19021996) organized the first explorations in the Armenian territories. Later, the most significant figure was undoubtedly Fernanda de’ Maffei (1917-2011), who, beginning in the 1950s, traveled throughout the Near East and in 1976 was appointed Professor of Byzantine Art History at Sapienza, holding the first chair of this discipline in Italy. Among her students of that time, we must remember Gianclaudio Macchiarella, Marina Falla, Gioia Bertelli, Alessandra Guiglia, and Claudia Barsanti. A subsequent phase of the research saw the participation of Antonio Iacobini, Enrico Zanini, Mauro della Valle, and Andrea Paribeni, together with Italo Furlan of the University of Padua. 373 391 392 ABSTRACTS Until the turn of the 19th century, the History of Byzantine Art as an autonomous discipline did not exist. In Italy and in Europe there were only the so-called ‘Byzantine studies’. In 1901, however, La Sapienza established the first chair of Art History, entrusted to Adolfo Venturi (1856-1941). Venturi and his students began to study Byzantine monuments, which were considered an integral part of the development of Italian art during the Middle Ages. Among those students there was also a skilled young man, Antonio Muñoz (18841960), who in 1905 was among the promoters of the first Byzantine art exhibition in Europe, held in the Abbey of Grottaferrata. He was also the first Italian art historian to travel to the Near East to study the monuments of Istanbul and Turkey. During his trip, Muñoz – who was a fan of the new photographic technique – began to gather a collection of images that would become part of his ‘Byzantine collection’. After a dynamic phase at the beginning of the 20th century, between the First and Second World Wars, research on Byzantine art in Italy took a different path. The rise of fascism marked an inversion of the trend: Byzantium was considered a negative model, one of decadence, compared to the glories of ancient Rome, and underwent demonization. Among those who escaped this trend was Bernard Berenson (1865-1959), the great American art historian living in Florence, who remained tenaciously pro-Byzantine. Among Italian scholars, on the other hand, there were very few who managed to maintain international contacts. The first was Pietro Toesca (18651959), a student of Adolfo Venturi and professor at Sapienza University. Then Sergio Bettini (1905-1986) from the University of 374 Padua beginning in 1931 traveled in the East and, a few years later, wrote a pioneering handbook on this subject. At that time, in the absence of an official independent chair, Byzantine art continued to be taught in Rome and in Italy under the title of other disciplines, such as History of Medieval Art or Christian Archaeology. After the fall of fascism, the negative attitude towards Byzantium persisted for a long time in Italian culture. Beginning in the 1950s, however, a new chapter in Byzantine studies was written in Ravenna. Here, Giuseppe Bovini founded the “Corsi di Cultura sull’Arte Ravennate e Bizantina”. These annual conferences, held from 1955 until 1998, were continued under the leadership of Raffaella Farioli after Bovini’s death. Since the mid-1970s, the teaching of the History of Byzantine Art gained space not only at Sapienza but also in other Italian universities. The research and travels carried out by the various groups of scholars gave life to new photographic archives, which enlarged the network of historical archives, in existence since the end of the 19th century: photographic collections of scholars and university missions, collections of public institutions and foreign research centers. Today these form an important and rich heritage, but are not yet well known. The conference Fotografare Bisanzio aimed to draw attention to this heritage for Byzantium and the Near East, trying to respond to a critical need that can no longer be postponed. Keywords Byzantine Art and Architecture; Eastern Mediterranean; Field Trips; Art Historiography; Archives. ABSTRACTS THE CENTER FOR DOCUMENTATION OF BYZANTINE ART HISTORY AT SAPIENZA: FROM THE FIELD TRIPS TO THE DIGITAL ARCHIVE Giovanni Gasbarri, Livia Bevilacqua In 1966, a team of Rome-based architects and art historians led by Géza de Francovich (1902-1996) inaugurated a series of field trips with the purpose of gaining first-hand knowledge of medieval Armenian architecture. These trips, funded by Sapienza University of Rome and the National Council of Research of Italy (CNR-Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche), resulted in a substantial number of photographs, a selection of which was displayed at a 1968 photographic exhibition in Rome, titled Architettura Medievale Armena. In the following decades, under the direction of Fernanda de’ Maffei (1917-2011), the Sapienza team continued to travel regularly in the territories of the Byzantine Near East, documenting art and architecture in Turkey, Syria, Greece, Israel, Jordan, and North Africa. The vast amount of material acquired during these explorations (mainly photographs, but also letters, notes, and travel diaries) was eventually collected in the CDSAB -Center for Documentation of Byzantine Art History, founded in 1996 by Mara Bonfioli. The Center is currently the repository for over 35,100 images (including photographs, maps, and drawings) and has become a remarkable resource for the study of early Christian and Byzantine monuments distributed throughout different areas of the eastern Mediterranean, many of which are currently inaccessible or very difficult to reach. Until now, however, this material has remained mostly unknown to scholars, as it has never been catalogued or published extensively. Only in 2018 two exhibitions held in Istanbul and in Rome (Picturing a Lost Empire. An Italian Lens on Byzantine Art in Anatolia, 1960-2000; La Siria bizantina nella documentazione fotografica dal Novecento a oggi) provided a first glimpse of the holdings of the Center. More recently, the research project Picturing a Lost Empire. An Archive for Byzantine Monumental Heritage in the Eastern Mediterranean: The Centro di Documentazione di Storia dell’Arte Bizantina, Sapienza Università di Roma, led by Antonio Iacobini, offered the opportunity to expand the research initiated with the 2018 exhibitions. Since 2020, the Center’s photo archive has undergone a new campaign of hires digitization, metadata collection, and online publication. Starting with the photographs taken during the field trips led by Fernanda de’ Maffei in Cilicia and Isauria (in the 1980s and 1990s), the photographic material is currently being transferred into a digital database, with the aim of making the whole collection available through the institutional website of Sapienza University (https://saras.uniroma1.it/en/structures/cdsa b). Transparencies, negatives, proof sheets, and printed photographs are organized in topographical order, focusing on the regions explored for over half a century by the Byzantine art historians of Sapienza. After each item is inventoried, catalogued, and digitized with the collaboration of the DigiLab Center of Sapienza, it is uploaded on the website and can be searched through a dedicated browser. The CDSAB digital collection is intended as an expanding repository. It includes other groups of pictures 375 393 394 ABSTRACTS recently digitized (parts of the collections on Istanbul, Syria, and Mesopotamia) and photographs originally in digital format (such as those on Georgia), and it aspires to dialogue with similar initiatives on Byzantine art and architecture at international level. Keywords Byzantine Art and Architecture; Eastern Mediterranean; Field Trips; Photographs; Archives. THE PROJECT ON THE MARBLE FURNISHINGS OF HAGIA SOPHIA IN CONSTANTINOPLE AND ITS PHOTOGRAPHIC COLLECTION AT THE CENTER FOR DOCUMENTATION OF BYZANTINE ART HISTORY AT SAPIENZA Alessandra Guiglia, Roberta Flaminio The starting point of the survey project on the Hagia Sophia marble furnishings carries on from the previous research on the impressive ensemble of slabs and posts that made up the 6th century liturgical enclosure of the early Christian church of St. Clemente in Rome, an outstanding example of Constantinopolitan workmanship. In fact, the most obvious model for the Roman carved slabs could be easily traced back to the huge marble furnishing set up for the lavish reconstruction of the Justinianic Hagia Sophia, that became therefore the main object of the successive project. Claudia Barsanti and Alessandra Guiglia, who had already carried out the study on the St. Clemente furnishing, coordinated the research group, which also comprised Mauro della Valle, Roberta Flaminio, Andrea 376 Paribeni and Asnu Bilban Yalçın, each of whom had a specific assignment. Several missions were undertaken between 1999 and 2004, when a book with the results of the research was published (A. Guiglia Guidobaldi, C. Barsanti, Santa Sofia di Costantinopoli. L’arredo marmoreo della Grande Chiesa giustinianea, Città del Vaticano 2004). The project was supported by the Ministry of Tourism and Culture of the Republic of Turkey and by the Directorate of the Hagia Sophia Museum; financial support was provided by the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research, by the National Council of Research and by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The aim of this project was to provide a comprehensive study and a related visual documentation, by means of an extensive photographic report, of the more than one hundred marble slabs, carved in Proconnesian marble, which are employed in Hagia Sophia as balustrade along the edge of the gallery floor and, on the external side of the galleries, as window parapets. Our research therefore also included other components of the wide marble window screens of the building, such as the window entablature soffits, grills and frames. In the course of the survey, which was carried out along with the acquisition of the photographic documentation, our attention focused also on other items to be added as related topics of our research, including: the ‘masons’ marks’, a very common feature quite widespread on the aforementioned marble furnishing of the Justinianic church, that were deciphered and recorded in a catalogue; the marble spolia scattered across the wide floor but also re-employed in some unexpected ABSTRACTS spaces throughout the huge building, and carved from various marbles, including but not limited to Proconnesian marble; the wall revetment below the main western façade window, consisting of twelve tall marble slabs, each decorated with a monumental cross atop a globe. Last but not least, our research focused on the results of the Fossati brothers’ restoration work campaign of the building – which at the time had been in use as a mosque since 1453 – undertaken between 1847 and 1849. A valuable outcome of our survey related to this topic was the finding of three refined marble open-work slabs, or transennae, dating back to the 6th century, which were re-used in the Loggia of the Sultan, located at the end of the northern aisle, as an enclosure of the gallery of the Loggia, and which were taken as a model for the 19th century parapets. Hitherto, the marble parapet slabs of the galleries had never been systematically recorded and photographed on both sides in parallel. Therefore, the documentation resulting from our survey and the related critical approach provide an outstanding resource for the knowledge of the decorative repertoire of the slabs and a key tool for understanding the working process of the marble furnishing of a monument as significant as Hagia Sophia. Several difficulties hampered our photographic survey, particularly when documenting the side of the slabs facing inwards toward the central space of the Great Church; in fact, this side is accessible only via a passageway that is enclosed by a wooden balustrade in a bad state of repair. Owing to the narrowness of the passageway it was not possible to obtain a straight and frontal recording of each slab, so it was necessary to resort to the professional competence of Luca Fabiani and Maurizio Necci (graphic designer and photographer), who specifically devised a computer program for the straightening out of the photographs (no small achievement considering the limited digital technology of twenty years ago). All the photographic documentation gathered during the Hagia Sophia marbles project (1999-2004) is now housed in the Center for Documentation of Byzantine Art History at Sapienza University of Rome; it consists of about 2,500 slides and several printed photographs, catalogued in accordance with the research criteria outlined in the related publication. Further research and surveys on the Hagia Sophia, concerning other furnishings (bronze doors, carved wooden tie beams) and the marbles collection of the Hagia Sophia Müzesi, were carried out in later years by the same team, with additional members (Silvia Pedone and Alessandro Taddei). Keywords Hagia Sophia Constantinople; Marble Furnishing; Parapet Slabs; Photographic Documentation; CDSAB Archive. A FORERUNNER: BERNARD BERENSON AND BYZANTIUM IN THE ARCHIVE OF I TATTI Gabriella Bernardi, Spyros Koulouris The first part of the article deals with preliminary research on Bernard Berenson’s interest in Byzantine art through photographic material and correspondence with colleagues, friends, collectors and dealers which will be the subject of a forthcoming 377 395 396 ABSTRACTS monograph. Berenson is well known as a pioneering scholar of the Italian and Florentine Renaissance; actually, he was not only pioneer in that artistic field but also had the merit of re-evaluating the heritage of Byzantine art which in Italy was almost ignored during the first decades of the twentieth century. Indeed, from the 1920s until the end of his life, Berenson turned his attention to Byzantium – being partly ‘behind the scenes’ in the sense that his scientific production in that field was not extensive although it was his intention to publish an opus magnum in several volumes on the decadence of the classical art during the late antique period and its rediscovery in the Middle Ages. In this context, Byzantine art played a crucial role such as to partly justify the need to have a certain amount of photographic material available and also his numerous trips to ‘Byzantine’ (Mediterranean) territories. The opus magnum was never realized except the first volume, but this did not prevent Berenson from keeping up to date on what was happening in the Byzantine art historical context as evidenced by the numerous photos he received from his correspondents. The second part of this essay explores the creation of the Berenson photo archive of Byzantine art and architecture held at I Tatti. Although the Fototeca Berenson is well known among scholars for its rich holdings related to Italian painting, the section that deals with Byzantine art has remained for several decades hidden to scholars. However, for Berenson these photos were central to his research and they had a strong impact on the work of other art historians and writers as well. The paper analyzes Berenson’s numerous travels in Greece, Turkey, and the Middle 378 East. It was thanks to these trips that he was strongly influenced in studying the Byzantine world. Traveling to what was the ancient Ecumene, allowed him not only to admire the art of the Byzantine Empire, but also to organize large photo campaigns, get in contact with photographers, and acquire rare photo albums. His collaboration with other leading art historians of the time, particularly with the Harvard professor Arthur Kingsley Porter, sheds light on Berenson’s thoughts about Byzantium and his great efforts to document Byzantine art. Keywords History of Art; Archaeology; Correspondence; Photo Archives; Photography; Travels. SERGIO BETTINI AND BYZANTINE ART. FIELD TRIPS IN GREECE AND ISTANBUL IN THE 1930S: PHOTOGRAPHS AND WORKING NOTES Michela Agazzi The scientific archive of Sergio Bettini (19051986), professor at the University of Padua from the 1930s to 1975, is kept at Ca’ Foscari University in Venice (Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage). In addition to manuscripts (of published and unpublished texts) and lecture notes, there are also notes and files and a collection of photographs (some of which were taken by Bettini himself ). A large part of this material is the result of Bettini’s travels to the East (particularly Greece, Crete, and Constantinople) in the 1930s. These photographs (often mounted in cards) document not only the monuments and ABSTRACTS works, but also the travels, interests and critical maturation of the scholar who tackled Byzantine art in all its complexity, not only with the publications of those years, but up to the final works devoted to Venice. Keywords Sergio Bettini; Greece; Istanbul; Byzantine Architecture; Journey. FRIEDRICH WILHELM DEICHMANN AND BYZANTIUM IN THE PHOTOGRAPHIC ARCHIVE OF THE DEUTSCHES ARCHÄOLOGISCHES INSTITUT IN ROME Ralf Bockmann, Eva Staurenghi This article presents the estate of Friedrich Wilhelm Deichmann in the photo archive of the German Archaeological Institute (DAI) in Rome. Deichmann was an employee of the DAI over a period of about forty years and one of the formative pioneers of the discipline of late antique archaeology and Byzantine art history, to which he made numerous important contributions. We outline the significance of his photographic activity in the context of his academic biography, his work, and his research travels, and offer suggestions as to how the estate can contribute to a better understanding of Deichmann’s research personality. In addition, the photographs are important historical documents of significant buildings and cultural regions. We briefly present some of the outstanding focal points of the estate, including above all holdings on Syria, Turkey, Greece, Sudan, and Egypt, i.e., central and special regions of great importance for Byzantine studies. Keywords Friedrich Wilhelm Deichmann; Archive; Photographs; Late Antique Archaeology; Byzantine Art History. BYZANTIUM IN THE ARCHIVES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF BOLOGNA: FROM GIUSEPPE BOVINI’S COLLECTION TO THE DIGITAL ARCHIVE BYZART – BYZANTINE ART AND ARCHAEOLOGY ON EUROPEANA AND ALMA DIGITAL LIBRARY Isabella Baldini, Giulia Marsili Exploring Byzantium through the photographic archives of the University of Bologna means retracing the vicissitudes of some of the personalities who marked its history and laid the foundations for the study and knowledge of Byzantine culture not only within the University of Bologna, but also throughout the Italian scientific panorama. First among them is certainly Giuseppe Bovini, former Director of the National Museum of Ravenna and head of the chair of Christian Archaeology at the University of Bologna. His brilliant career and multifaceted scientific interests are fully mirrored by the large amount of photographic documentation preserved today at the Centro per lo Studio delle Antichità Ravennati e Bizantine “Giuseppe Bovini” (CeSARB): it consists of about 8,000 images, mainly typographical plates for scientific journals such as Felix Ravenna and Corsi di Cultura sull’Arte Ravennate e Bizantina, in addition to numerous personal shots of monuments and archaeological excavations. Dealing with hundreds of monuments and objects spanning 379 397 398 ABSTRACTS from late Roman era to the Early Middle Ages, the archive is a privileged observatory of artistic and monumental heritage of centers scattered from Northern Europe to the Eastern Mediterranean across about seven centuries. The depiction of artifacts and archaeological contexts no longer visible or no more standing strongly increases the documentary value of the collection. Targeting the goal of preserving and enhancing this invaluable heritage arose “BYZART – Byzantine Art and Archaeology on Europeana”, a European project coordinated by UNIBO and co-funded within the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) program, aiming at developing high-performance, sustainable, and interconnected transEuropean networks in the field of digital services. The project, started in 2018, was undertaken over two years with the ambitious goal of digitizing and making accessible through Europeana platform a great amount of audio-visual materials related to the Byzantine and Post-Byzantine cultural heritage, namely around 75,000 content. These ones mostly pertained to previously unexploited analogical archives, sometimes requiring restoration and preservation measures. The purpose of enhancing and opening up this unexplored heritage has been pursued in different ways by the project consortium. It gathers an international and interdisciplinary team, composed by the University of Bologna as coordinator, along with the Audio and Visual Art department of the Ionian University, the Open University of Cyprus, the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, the Institute of Art Studies of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Historical Research of the National Hellenic Research Foundation, the 380 Museum of Ravenna with the International Centre of Mosaic Documentation and Classense Library. Most of these institutions has acted as content providers and has delivered materials from 29 largely unpublished image archives, including slides, glass plates and analog photographic materials, as well as one music archive of traditional Orthodox Church music records, and one audio-visual archive about the Byzantine monuments of Cyprus. The task of working with heterogeneous media collections in different states of preservation required specific strategies for digitization. This scenario forced to a double-track approach, combining the conversion of analog material into digital format according to agreed standards, and the creation of a metadata set able to take into account the diverse features of the archives. Concerning the metadata scheme, the European Data Model, mandatory for all Europeana collections, has been customized according to the peculiarities of BYZART collections and by comparing it with various national and international cataloging systems and best practices. A method of metadata quality check and content validation was also implemented, in order to ensure consistence and uniformity. The digital items have been ingested and displayed on the project web database, conceived and set up especially for BYZART action. It has also ensured the harvesting process from BYZART collection to Europeana via the OAI-PMH, and Alma Digital Library (UNIBO) has acted as an aggregator for BYZART. After the end of the project, the same institution has been hosting BYZART dark archive and collection, thus ensuring the sustainability over time of BYZART action. A great deal of painstaking effort has been put ABSTRACTS to the semantic and linguistic enrichment of metadata content, specifically related to the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) associated with the cultural object, and to the descriptive fields of “Location”, “Subject”, “Type”, “Material”, and “Technique”. References to Linked Open Data resources have been included, such as GeoNames, IconClass, and the Getty Art and Architecture Thesaurus, in order to empower content searchability and accessibility. Referring to multilingual enrichment, a special focus has been also placed on the development of a controlled vocabulary specifically dedicated to Byzantine art and archaeology, based on Getty AAT repertoire, PartagePlus vocabulary, ICCD terminology lists and scientific publications, with the specific aim of preserving multilingual richness across the main project languages. Among its goals and outcomes, BYZART action has enhanced Europeana platform in terms of high quality contents (76,076 data and related metadata, mostly in Tier 2 or above) related to a previously neglected thematic field. Moreover, it has empowered Europeana Byzantine contents’ accessibility and visibility by linking and classifying Byzantine-related items already on Europeana to BYZART collection, so that they become visible on BYZART website with a direct link to Europeana portal. Project results can be exploited and manipulated by a wide range of actors and stakeholders, such as scholars, schools, museums, cultural organizations, as well as amateurs and citizens as a whole. It is also worth mentioning the remarkable potential of BYZART collection as documentary source for research and didactic purposes, as highlighted by many targeted contents produced within the project, namely Thematic Galleries and the web exhibition The Silk and the Blood. Images of Authority in Byzantine Art and Archaeology. Relying on FAIR principles, BYZART project represents the first attempt to bring Byzantine culture out of its traditional boundaries by opening the fruition of its contents to a wide audience through the creation of a digital collection. Such a way, by digitizing and showcasing materials from physical archives originally belonged to eminent archaeologists and art historians of the past, BYZART project has therefore played a major role in unlocking and enhancing the knowledge of Byzantine culture through the lens of its main characters. Keywords Byzantine Cultural Heritage; Byzantine Art and Archaeology; Photographic Archives; Digital Collections; Digital Humanities. LATE ANTIQUE AND BYZANTINE ELAIUSSA SEBASTE. THE ARCHIVE OF AN ARCHAEOLOGICAL EXPEDITION OF SAPIENZA IN TURKEY Marcello Barbanera, Alessandro Taddei Whoever oversees an archaeological fieldwork needs to have stable, coherent, logically organised, and easily accessible archives. Excavations, as is well known, are a destructive process. This is true either for those carried out in the past by digging into the soil irrespective of strata, or those most recent, which are based upon a close recording of every minimal clue found on the ground, should it be the product of an anthropic intervention or of a natural phenomenon. For decades long, such a kind of considerations was 381 399 400 ABSTRACTS to be found in the handbook of archaeological research methodology. Those who undertook the first large-scale excavations worldwide did not feel the problem of archives: it was their action that created these latter. However, since between the 19th and the 20th centuries archaeology evolved into a discipline with its own rules, the need to support archaeological interpretation through the evidence collected on the field or by means of subsequent analyses became apparent. Archive materials are crucial when any analysis and/or re-interpretation is to be done of the ‘destruction’ of an excavated area. Archives are somewhat like excavations; they too have their own ‘stratigraphy’. An archaeological archive is a unit based upon a manifold documentation. On the one hand, we have what we collected during the project phase, either on paper or in digital form: written reports and drafts, drawings, photographs, 3D models, geophysical surveys, Lidar point clouds, etc. On the other, we should consider the evidence of material culture, including ceramics, metal objects, stone, wood, bone, environmental remains. Thus, it clearly appears that maintaining archives is a basic condition for archaeological research. They are ‘vital’ for us, in that they allow us to reassess old results or to do further research. More generally, they give everyone concerned with our common past the key to access it. Excavations at Elaiussa Sebaste (Ayaş, SE Turkey) started in 1995 under the direction of Eugenia Equini Schneider. The writer of these lines took over as director in 2020. To deal with the management of such long-established excavations is not just a routine gesture. Indeed, the Elaiussa project developed itself during a period characterised by a worldwide radical technological improvement. The 382 Elaiussa dossier, as well as those of many similar archaeological sites, was of course affected by these transformations. Suddenly, traditional methods and tools became obsolete, and, unfortunately, some deplorable loss of data is being reported. Nonetheless, by taking advantage of the digitalisation, we are now able to use the clouds or set up a central server within our university computer system. This latter is expected to offer a repository where each member of our archaeological mission can upload the documents or photographic materials and put all of them at disposal of internal and external users. Thus far, for Elaiussa’s archive to be functional it is necessary to transfer all the information from the obsolete media to the most updated one. The core of the archive should be placed in the headquarters of the mission, ideally in a server located at the Sapienza University of Rome. All the materials will be organised and made accessible to all those who work there. To date, a substantial part of them has been already filed under specific categories. The available data was for the first time divided according to the 25 excavation areas, and further subdivisions by year of acquisition and document type were introduced. Given these preconditions, we will proceed to create digital files in almost every sector of our work – from data collecting to the production of images and the editing of written reports. All the data shall be managed in a way that ensure that they will remain secure and accessible both now and in the future. The research about the early Byzantine phase of the centre of Elaiussa Sebaste took advantage – mostly through recent years – of new sources of documentation and the image of a key harbour-city became clearer and clearer. Not incidentally, this means that the ABSTRACTS bulk of the archive of the archaeological mission is being increasing in size and quality year after year. To deal with this body of information is what all those who wish to process the data collected from the excavation campaigns are expected to do. At Elaiussa, the monuments – rather than the written sources – would tell us about the history of the settlement. This is all the more true because the rich architectural and epigraphical evidence of the late antique city may somewhat compensate for the very few surviving texts. At this stage of research, it may appear simplistic to postulate a ‘continuity’ between the Graeco-Roman and the Byzantine city. In most cases, public and private spaces are in fact maintained by means of a radical reinterpretation of their function or use. It is no coincidence that the nuclei of the Hellenistic and Roman city – i.e., the promontory, the so-called ‘island’, the area of the theatre and the suburban temple – promptly underwent, between the fifth and sixth century AD, to architectural remodelling or functional conversion. This was undoubtedly done through the agency of new social and economic factors linked to the relatively flourishing regional framework. The second part of this contribution will show the impact of the archive of the Elaiussa archaeological mission and the relevant publications in offering a comprehensive view of this renewal of the urban fabric in the Early Byzantine period. Keywords Elaiussa; Turkey; Sapienza University of Rome; Archaeology; Excavations; Archives; Digitalisation; Early Byzantine Period. THE CRUSADER OUTREMER IN ANTONIO CADEI’S PHOTOGRAPHIC ARCHIVE AT SAPIENZA. THE FIELD TRIPS FROM 1990 TO 1993 Pio Francesco Pistilli In the early 1990s, scholars from the University of Rome La Sapienza carried out a series of study trips in crusader Outremer led by Antonio Cadei, full professor of History of Medieval Art. From 1990 until 1993, three missions were organised: one in Cilicia (Southern Turkey), one in the Mediterranean Syria, and a third one in Israel with two appendices in Egypt and Cyprus. The aim was to achieve a deeper knowledge of citadels, castles, Frankish, Ayyubid and Mamluk strongholds that were known only through specialized and outdated studies from the second half of the 19th century. The main intention of the research and of the field trips was to gain an understanding of the connections between the Western and Eastern side of the Mediterranean sea during the 12th and 13th centuries. This was considered to be the base for further investigations on the Military Orders’ presence in Europe (for example in the Iberian Peninsula, in Occitania, and in Italy) as well as to identify – in fortified architecture context – crusaders’ projectual sources in Frederick II castra in Regnum Siciliae (1220-1266), in expectation of the Celebrazioni federiciane in Sicily (1994). The focus is to understand the modus agendi and the criteria of the project, in regard to the reasons why those particular geographical areas were selected. The research is based on travel diaries, sketches and photographical records stored at La Sapienza. 383 401 402 ABSTRACTS Keywords Holy Land; Crusades; Castles and Citadels; Military Orders; 12th and 13th Centuries PHOTOGRAPHS AS A ‘MIRROR’. TUSCIA UNIVERSITY IN BYZANTINE CARIA AND CAPPADOCIA Maria Andaloro with Paola Pogliani CRETE AND THE ISLANDS OF THE DODECANESE THROUGH GIUSEPPE GEROLA’S PHOTOGRAPHS PRESERVED IN VENICE AND IN TRENTO (1900-1912) Spiridione Alessandro Curuni Through a description of the photographic activity that Giuseppe Gerola carried out during his field trips to Crete and the islands of the Dodecanese, this paper aims at shedding new light on the extreme importance, in every research activity, of producing adequate photographic documentation. This assumption is still valid today. In fact, the photographs taken by Gerola between the late 19th and the early 20th century have proven of the utmost significance for our knowledge of the most concealed features of Byzantine and neoByzantine architecture of Greece. It is therefore necessary to remind every scholar who aspires to research architecture and historical environments, that each photographic shot they produce turns into a ‘living’ and real document, which attests to the multiple transformations of the monuments portrayed. Such documents will in turn be a reference for any restoration, and especially conservation for those monuments. Keywords Architecture; Byzantine Churches; Technique; Photography; Crete; Dodecanese. 384 Articulated in four paragraphs, the contribution intends to: Underline the undisputed importance of photographic and visual documentation in the field of figurative arts, in line with the point of view promoted by the Conference in which we participated (see Photographing Byzantium: title and theme). To reflect on why the image (photographic and, in general, visual) of the image (of the work of art) is the necessary and irreplaceable tool for ‘doing’ art history, finding a satisfactory solution in the definition of the photographic image as a ‘mirror’ and as a ‘vicarious’ image. ‘Mirror’ because the photo captures and returns the figurative work in the aspect of the visible, reflecting, therefore, that visible of the original which is inexpressible, unavailable to the word since the visible, as we know, cannot be compared to the linguistic narrative register. A ‘vicarious image’ in that, since the photograph is the most faithful and enduring document of the figurative work, it becomes an essential and even active memory of it, even in the extreme case represented by the loss of the original (cf. Between Image and Word). To narrate our experience gained over a long period of time in the field surveys. That is, to present the path of photographic and, more extensively, visual documentation that we have outlined in parallel with the study of the Byzantine pictorial heritage in the territory of Caria (from 1996 to 2005) and in Cappadocia (from 2006 to the present) while conducting ABSTRACTS the surveys within the Research and Restoration Mission of the University of Tuscia in Turkey. That is, to illustrate how the choices made in proceeding along that photographic and visual path (graphic tables, mapping on a photographic basis, 3D surveys, etc.) do not respond to a canonical order, but are dictated point by point by the instances that pose the paintings and their most problematic and specific aspects, now within the church of Kuçuk Tavşan Adası, in Caria, now in the many excavated churches of Cappadocia. And to conclude that it derives from this type of approach, based on the reciprocal correspondence between the plan of the study for a better knowledge of the paintings and that of their documentation, if we can speak of a ‘plural and integrated system’ for the photographic and visual documentation conceived, designed, and realized within the framework of the Mission to Turkey and which is partly visible in the database “Cappadocia - Rock Art and Habitat” (see The Plural and Integrated System of Visual Documentation for the Byzantine Monuments of Caria and Cappadocia). To present the database “Cappadocia - Rock Art and Habitat” which is an essential part of the “Virtual Museum of Cappadocia” (http://www.museovirtualecappadocia.it/) designed and implemented in 2015 with the CNR within the Mission to Cappadocia of the University of Tuscia within the PRIN project 2010-2011 Rock Art and Habitat in Cappadocia (Turkey) and Central-Southern Italy. Rock, excavated architecture, painting: between knowledge, conservation, valorisation. The database collects and archives materials and data of different nature (documents, photos, plans, maps, scientific investigations, etc.) and makes them available online allowing access to knowledge about the murals and monuments investigated (109 monuments). For each monument included in the database we provide information about: place, architectural structure, function, rock hewn liturgical and civil furnishing, decoration. With regard to the churches, special attention is paid to pictorial decoration. Iconographic themes, chronology, techniques of execution and constituent materials are accurately recorded for each monument. Keywords Visual Documentation; Word and Image; Wall Painting; Byzantium; Database. BYZANTINE ART IN ITALY THROUGH THE MATERIALS OF THE ARCHIVIO CENTRALE DELLO STATO: A DOCUMENTATION MAPPING Andrea Paribeni, Silvia Pedone The present paper explores and analyzes part of the rich documentation related to the monitoring and conservation procedures of monuments and artworks produced by the central and peripheral offices of the Italian Ministry of Education, between the second half of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century. The documents in question – letters, reports, photos, drawings etc. – are connected to the need of the Italian State to harmonize with each other the legislative measures regarding the protection of works of art in force in pre-unification states and to survey and monitor the artistic heritage as widely as possible, in order to ensure a more precise knowledge, a more 385 403 404 ABSTRACTS adequate material conservation and, last but not least, to prevent illegal dispersions, sales and exports. Our research focused mainly on documentation relating to Byzantine art and architecture. Between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the following century we witness the gradual and progressive transformation of archival materials, which reveal an increasingly systematic use of the photographic medium, certainly faster and more reliable in the delicate task of establishing, without misunderstandings, the identity and the state of conservation of the artefacts. The documentary survey carried out in the Archivio Centrale dello Stato proved to be complex, for it was necessary to examine and collate very heterogeneous materials, from administrative documents to personal letters, but that notwithstanding, it also allowed us to make some unexpected and hopefully useful discoveries, which underscore the growing attention paid in these years by the academic and administrative milieu to the realm of the art of Byzantium. Among the archival and photographic records relating to Byzantine art in Italy, we focused our attention to some relevant case studies such as the interesting documentation on the mosaics of the Basilica of Torcello, or on the restoration campaign of the mosaics in the baptistery of S. Giovanni in Fonte in Naples. New information also resurfaced about the history of the restoration of the famous monuments of 5th-6th century Ravenna, and about the figures of the mosaicists involved in the project. These are very skilled workers, who for this reason were also sent abroad to restore important Byzantine monuments, as in the case of the mosaics of the monastery of 386 Daphni in Greece. Photographs often accompanied requests of various kinds, proposals to purchase new works on the art market, authorizations for moving works from one museum to another or for loans. Sometimes, the photos could be used to trace stolen pieces, as in the remarkable case of the famous micromosaic icon of S. Demetrio in Sassoferrato. The early photographic documentation was obviously useful for the reconstruction of the material conditions of certain objects through their historical transformations, and served to shed light on the tampering suffered by the works. In fact, the lack of graphic or photographic evidence makes it difficult, after a long time, to establish the precise identity of certain works and their historical vicissitudes, as in the case of the sale of the famous Byzantine ivory of the Barberini family acquired by Louvre in 1899. Keywords Byzantine Art; Mosaic Restoration; Cultural Heritage Preservation; Art Market; Archival Documentation. THE ARCHIVES OF ROCK-CUT CHURCHES WALL PAINTINGS IN APULIA: FROM ALBA MEDEA TO COSIMO DAMIANO FONSECA Manuela De Giorgi The considerable heritage in Apulia of painted rock-cut churches, in this area in a number much higher than in other regions of Southern Italy, can be compared, for their archaeological and art-historical quantity and quality, with other areas of the Mediterranean Basin. A cultural legacy which attracted ‘local’ ABSTRACTS erudites’ attention firstly, such as Pietro Cavoti and Cosimo De Giorgi; and later, since the late 19th century, also international scholars, especially French, Charles Diehl and Émile Bertaux, just to mention the most important. The cultural relations with Byzantium that most of the Apulian cave-paintings testify (a peculiar element that marked a part of Medieval art in Southern Italy) on the one hand, and the fragility of the pictorial decoration on the other hand were most probably the inputs for pushing for their graphic and photographic documentation, undertaken in Apulia earlier than in other areas. Sketches, drawings (sometimes watercolor) and engravings for printing were used at the very beginning, from late 19th at least until the third decade of the 20th century. It was in fact in the late 1930s that a complete, documented survey of Apulian rock-cut churches with their precious wall paintings was perceived as an urgent necessity, becoming the main goal and fundamental objective of research actions carried out by the ANIMI (Associazione Nazionale per gli Interessi del Mezzogiorno d’Italia) and Umberto Zanotti Bianco, president of the Associazione in that time. The great effort made by ANIMI in photographing and documenting rock-cut churches and rupestrian wall paintings in Apulia responded indeed to the need for a census of such archaeological evidences and it was undoubtably an incredible (for that time) scientific, logistical and economic effort represented in present days by the rich Fund of Alba Medea, the latter appointed by Zanotti Bianco of the study of the cave churches published in her fundamental work of ‘39 Gli affreschi delle cripte eremitiche pugliesi. A number of documents and photographs of this work are now kept in Rome. In conjunction with the photographic documentation of the ANIMI, also the Soprintendenza of the region (then, Regia Soprintendenza alle Opere di Antichità e d’Arte della Puglia) started a series of photographic campaigns dedicated to painted decoration of rock-cut churches, since 1928, with a series of photographic glass plates (13 × 18 cm – B category): significantly the collection of photographic glass plates of the Soprintendenza begins with the documentation of the Byzantine frescoes in the crypt of Poggiardo (12 plates). It was most probably its precarious state of preservation (after few years the frescoes of the crypt would have been detached and restored) leading the authorities to document by photographs this fragile Byzantine heritage. The ’20s and ’30s of the last century thus saw the photographic discovery of regional rupestrian paintings, with a large number of photographs dating back to 1938. For a new phase of the ‘photographic fortune’ of Apulian cave churches, one should wait the second half of the last century. In the ’60s, the University of Bari and, in particular, its Istituto di Storia dell’Arte directed at the time by Adriano Prandi, were the promoters of a new survey in Apulia and in the area of Matera (Basilicata) of cave churches; Franco Dell’Aquila was appointed for this action and he started the new campaign carried out from 1965 until 1977. The transparencies of that work, all catalogued by town/site and carrying the dates of execution, are now preserved in the Photo Library of the Soprintendenza in Bari. The last, important ‘thematic’ photographic 387 405 406 ABSTRACTS fund related to Apulian rupestrian wall painting is preserved today at the University of Salento, in Lecce. This is the FIR , “Fondo della Iconografia Rupestre” of the Apulia Region, known also as “Fonseca Fund”: it collects 900 transparencies (6 × 6), printed photos, negatives of cave churches in the provinces of Lecce and Taranto (specifically, there are 593 transparencies for Taranto and 307 for Lecce). The project of the FIR , funded by the Regione Puglia ended in 1987, when all photographic material was catalogued and formally transmitted to the University. The FIR and the other photographic funds considered in this contribution, known – I think – most to scholars, are certainly an extraordinary research tool, but they are also ‘cultural heritage’ themselves, worthy of special attention for their conservation. Keywords Photo Archive; Apulia; Rock-cut Churches; Wall Painting; Conservation; Byzantine Art. ERNST KITZINGER AND THE BYZANTINE MOSAICS IN SICILY. THE “FOSCO MARAINI” PHOTOGRAPHIC COLLECTION OF THE ISTITUTO CENTRALE PER IL CATALOGO E LA DOCUMENTAZIONE: FROM MAKING TO ARCHIVING Benedetta Cestelli Guidi Shortly after the end of World War II Ernst Kitzinger lead a b&w photographic survey of the mosaics of the major churches of the northwest coast of Sicily, namely in Palermo, Cefalù, and Monreale. The resulting negatives were kept for half a century in the Research 388 Library and Collection of Dumbarton Oaks, Harvard University, Washington D.C., the institute where Kitzinger spent most of his professional life. Most of the negatives (about 1850 in total) are today kept in the photo archive of the Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione (ICCD) of the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage (1342 negatives), whilst others are still held in Dumbarton Oaks (about 500 negatives). In my presentation of the photo survey, I am arguing that the entire survey is stylistically coherent and no difference can be seen between the photos taken by one or the other photographer: this is due to Kitzinger’s strict direction regarding not just ‘what’ but ‘how’ to record the mosaics. Given his major influence in shaping the picture’s composition, I am willing to consider Kitzinger a co-author of the overall photo survey. The negatives were kept in DO until their publication in the six folio volumes titled I mosaici del periodo normanno in Sicilia, finally edited thanks to the economic support of the Accademia di Scienze, Lettere e Arti of Palermo (1992-2000). The editorial composition of the volumes is rare, being mainly made of single sheets of loose reproductions; I argue that Kitzinger took inspiration from Pietro Toesca and the Bencini&Sansoni photo volumes of the early ’40s. I am also concerned with the materiality and mobility of both negatives and prints. Both of these materials bear traces of their use during a long time span – half a century – showing changes in perspectives in handling them, according to various perspectives such as a scholar’s desk and a research and conservation photo archive. ABSTRACTS The photographs were shot under Kitzinger’s supervision by the free-lance writer, anthropologist, and photographer Fosco Maraini (1951) and by the photographer Bito Coppola (1954), then head of the central photographic office of the Italian State (the Gabinetto Fotografico Nazionale whose archives are today held at the ICCD). Maraini had moved to Sicily with his family – his wife Topazia Alliata was born in Palermo – after the end of the war; as a grounded and talented professional in many fields of creative narratives, Maraini took up the commission under the strict control of the scholar, whose need was strictly connected to providing a complete visual documentation of every single narrative and decorative scene. He produced most of the photographs in the spring and summer of 1951 but, when Kitzinger was ready to complete the photo survey in 1954, Maraini decided not to continue the survey. Nevertheless, a friendship had started in Palermo in 1951 which kept the two men in touch for the rest of their lives; their relationship is widely documented by letter exchanges that lasted until 2000. Maraini’s private papers and photo archive are today kept in the Gabinetto Vieusseux, Florence. This proves to be a precious and extremely rare documentation non only as relates Kitzinger’s commission but also to pin down the timing, instruments, goals, and difficulties in pursuing photo documentation of cultural heritage. In 1954 Kitzinger worked together with Coppola who shot the rest of the images needed to complete what is still today believed to be the most complete visual documentation of Byzantine mosaics in Sicily. After publication, the negatives were to be returned to the two photographers. Kitzinger had already in mind to leave the whole set of photographs to only one archive, the most suitable for conservation of photographs of cultural heritage and was able to have Maraini agree on the photo archive of the cultural heritage Italian ministry, i.e., the archive of the ICCD. In exchange Maraini got the whole set of prints made during the survey by both photographers during the shootings; these materials are held in Maraini’s archive preserved at the Gabinetto Vieusseux, Florence. Keywords Documentary Photography; Byzantine Mosaics in Sicily; Ernst Kitzinger; Fosco Maraini; Gabinetto Fotografico Nazionale, Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione, Rome; Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collections, Harvard University. THE BYZANTINE MEDITERRANEAN IN THE PHOTOGRAPHIC COLLECTION OF THE PONTIFICAL ORIENTAL INSTITUTE IN ROME Vincenzo Ruggieri If one has to say what the Pontifical Oriental Institute (henceforth as PIO) preserves in terms of photographic material, readers should know a couple of things at the outset. In the past, there was a room made available to preserve documents concerning both the academic life of the Institute and personal matters of the various professors (mainly Jesuits) and members who arrived in Rome to teach. One can loosely call this room an ‘archive’, though it received the name of ‘museum’ in the first half of the 20th century. 389 407 408 ABSTRACTS In this room, however, members of the Institute used to leave also what they brought back to Rome from their academic journeys abroad or from institutional visits, congresses etc. Among the many materials collected, today we can also find a considerably large quantity of photographic material (alas!) often left without any identifying clue to what they represent. The main problem, in fact, that we must deal with when searching for information about an inscription or mosaic is often the quasi-total absence of chronological and topographic coordinates. In addition, one ought to remember that the PIO is not an Institute of Fine Arts and therefore its main purpose was (and still is) not to collect photographs concerning objects, matters of artistic nature. The backbone of the photographic archive has been made by four Jesuits: Guillaume de Jerphanion, Juan Mateos, Pelopida Stephanou and myself; the time span covered by these men runs from 1904 to 2020. What seems unique in the various collections of photos and slides collected at the PIO (one might cautiously surmise about 30,000 shots) is the characteristic intention behind each photo take, that is, its anthropological search for the local culture. This feature, supported by the religious nature of the PIO, leads us to understand what local culture truly means. It is an ‘enlarged Byzantium’ that one should envisage when looking at these photos; several countries affected and influenced by Byzantium are taken into consideration (Russia, Slavic countries, Caucasus, Mesopotamia), together with all those customary countries surrounded by the Mediterranean. Jerphanion was sent to the Pontus for a religious purpose, but then began travelling throughout the Byzantine Empire 390 capturing Cappadocian frescoes indeed, but also inscriptions, Hittite stones, Roman, Seljuk and Ottoman monuments. Jerphanion used to complement, to provide a basis for the contents of the photos done by setting the image within a larger historical context. This way of filming carried out by Jerphanion has been called by scholars multi-ethnical, since it records the various strata of civilization within a geographical region. Better than Mateos and Stephanou, Jerphanion’s material can be set within a chronological context helped, as we are, by his publications which perhaps might reproduce the photos. Although Stephanou has travelled a considerable distance throughout Greece and the Balkans, he has left practically no indication whatsoever of the frescoes, icons, and people which he recorded during his years in these places. Stephanou has left quite a number of photos and slides, but unfortunately without any chronological or topographical reference. Very valuable are the typewritten headings, left by J. Mateos, accompanying his four albums of black and white photographs. We know very little about Mateos’ journeys in the Middle East (or better called the ‘Christian Orient’) – apart from the time he spent in Iraq in search of Syriac liturgical manuscripts – and indeed nothing can elucidate his splendid photographs on Palestine, Lebanon, Egypt and Syria. In a certain way, then, we know when and what Mateos photographed; the reason, however, escapes us. More than Stephanou, Mateos’ photographs share that anthropological trait we found in Jerphanion, due perhaps to his Mediterranean disposition that allowed him to share easily common life with the clergy and people he met all along his journeys. A final note of discontentment ought to be added. Due to the recent ABSTRACTS celebrations of the 100th anniversary of the PIO foundation, what we have loosely called ‘the archive’ is under reassessment and all the photographic material is in the process of being catalogued according to required clues. One has to be grateful, however, to these Jesuits, few as they turned out to be during the 100 years of life of the PIO, to have left for future generations an invaluable treasure chest of visual (and written) documentation on civilizations which have disappeared since. Keywords Anatolia; Mesopotamia; Palestine; Syria; Egypt. THE SCHOOL OF PAOLO VERZONE IN TURIN AND BYZANTINE ARCHITECTURE IN ASIA MINOR IN THE PHOTOGRAPHIC COLLECTIONS OF THE POLITECNICO Chiara Devoti, Enrica Bodrato Politecnico di Torino’s archives document over half a century of research and teaching activities by Paolo Verzone and his collaborators and students, between Italy and the territories of Asia Minor. The contribution deals with an examination of the archive and its organization and, through the re-reading of Verzone’s main writings, focuses on the construction of the iconographic support and the relationship between what has been published and the rich photographic documentation preserved. Engineer by training, Paolo Verzone (Vercelli 1902-Turin 1986) is a historian of ancient, medieval and Byzantine architecture, full professor since 1942 of Stylistic and constructive characters of monuments, director of the Institute of History of Architecture and from 1978 to 1986, professor emeritus at the Politecnico di Torino. Between 1951 and 1953 he was also in charge of the chair of History of architecture at the Teknik Üniversitesi in Istanbul and in 1957 he obtained from the Turkish government the concession for the excavation in the area of ancient Hierapolis, today Pamukkale, where he started the Italian Archaeological Mission of Hierapolis in Phrygia which he directed as head of mission until 1978. A long research and teaching activity that originated, at the Politecnico di Torino, a complex archive now inserted in the broader context of the historical collections of the University which count, only for the architecture documents, including the materials of which he wrote, 40 archival collections, part of academic training, part acquired by professionals and technical studies in Turin and Piedmont between the second half of the nineteenth century and the early 2000s. The collection of documents concerning Byzantium and Byzantine architecture is particularly rich; among this documentary material, photographs occupy an important position, also in consideration of Verzone’s particular familiarity with the photographic medium. As he sketches and notes with extraordinary skill, he photographs to the same extent, considering the shot as a document in all respects. This natural predisposition is associated with a particular attention to the material data, to the structural logic and to the knowledge of the urban context, all elements that make Paolo Verzone’s photographs a specific document, very far from the artistic shot, even if some 391 409 410 ABSTRACTS shots are of the highest value regarding the urban landscape representation. There are also, in Verzone’s collection, photographs purchased by specialized firms – systematically used for example for the exarchal area – and the comparison between authorial shots and commercial shots opens up a no less interesting field of analysis. The shots of Verzone and pupils are often used as a complement to scientific publications dedicated to Byzantine architecture in the micro-Asiatic area (much less in the exarchal area), so that they also accompany the development of Verzone’s critical thought as well as the formation of a group of students, then often in turn as teachers at the Politecnico di Torino. These, through the extraordinary gymnasium represented by the archaeological mission of Hierapolis, in continuing his studies on early Christian, Byzantine and Romanesque Architecture, give life to a real school, in which, upon the application of the master’s approach methodology, a very marked propensity for photography as an essential means of study is associated with. Keywords Verzone’s Archive; Politecnico di Torino; Materials; Building Techniques; Urban Approach. ADRIANO ALPAGO NOVELLO AND THE ARMENIAN CULTURE STUDIES AND DOCUMENTATION CENTRE Stefano Riccioni, Beatrice Spampinato In 1967, Adriano Alpago Novello made his first study trip to Armenia; aware of the 392 importance of the medieval cultural heritage of the southern Caucasus, he started storing consistent documentation. That documentation has been the core of decades of activity at the Armenian Culture Studies and Documentation Centre, nowadays located in Venice. In the summer 2021, the personal documentation of Alpago Novello has been brought to Venice, to join the historical collection and create a unified corpus of photos and written documents. The historical collection maintains a focus on the Armenian heritage, while the personal collection covers a wide geographical area with a special focus on byzantine Greece and Russia, Georgia, and Near East Christian heritage. This paper aims to describe the history, the state of conservation, the content, and the potential of this valuable and unknown collection of photos. A project written by the CSDCA and Ca’ Foscari University of Venice aims to promote the mentioned collection to open new research frameworks in the contemporary historical and theoretical context while strengthening and rebuilding the great legacy rooted in Venice in the study of Eastern Christian cultures. The purpose is to collect, digitize, and catalog Alpago Novello’s photographic documentation, to create an open-source database that will satisfy a broad request for access. The archive gives an overview of the conservation of cultural heritage during the Soviet Period and terms of comparison to look critically at the present-day monuments and landscapes after human or natural transformations have occurred. In addition, the collection shows the point of view of scholars involved in the Italian missions from the 1960s to the 1990s, opening interesting paths through several study fields like art- ABSTRACTS historical historiography, visual perception between East and West, the history of photography, and Middle Eastern history. Keywords Adriano Alpago Novello; Armenia; Georgia; Photographic Archive; Medieval Architecture. THE PHOTOGRAPHIC ARCHIVE OF THE GEORGIA PROJECT OF THE KUNSTHISTORISCHES INSTITUT IN FLORENCE Annette Hoffmann, Gerhard Wolf The photographic archive presented at the conference Fotografare Bisanzio is part of the Georgia Project, a collaborative project of the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – MaxPlanck-Institut (KHI) with the George Chubinashvili National Research Centre in Tbilisi (and other partners) that aims to promote an international network of researchers engaging with the art history of the South Caucasus region. The archive was set up in 2006 following the establishment of the project and its first seminar on Georgian medieval art, during which Dror Maayan, an Israeli artist and photographer, documented the monuments visited and created an extraordinary initial collection of digital photographs. This campaign was followed by others in 2007 and 2010, mainly in Georgia, but also in Armenia, resulting in approximately 3,000 images, two thirds of which (documenting Georgian art and architecture) were subsequently included in the KHI Photothek. They are accessible both in paper form – as colour prints arranged in boxes – and in digital form (online). A special feature of this photographic archive is its dual documentary and artistic value. During his trip Dror Maayan not only took documentary photos, but also exclusively artistic photos of everyday and religious life, portraits of the young and the old, of monks and laymen, market scenes, family dinners, people in the streets, bare landscapes (with no monuments or human presence) etc. Although these photos were not made for the KHI and are not part of its archive, there is also often an artistic quality that shines through in the images of monuments and paintings that the photographer took for the KHI. Thus, documentary and artistic components overlap in the archive’s images in a non-uniform, but original and originary way. Another aspect to consider is that, from a documentary point of view, some KHI photos have acquired additional value because they represent certain states of monuments that no longer exist. Such cases show the fundamental role of the photographic archive with regard to the preservation of cultural heritage. In extremis, where the protection and preservation of monuments fails, photographs often remain the ‘last witness’ of their state. In addition to the subject of photographic genres and the nature of photography itself, the article considers on the one hand the multiple ontologies and temporalities of the photographic archive which ‘enclose’ monuments and works of art, as well as their style, the techniques used to create them, and their state of preservation; on the other hand, it addresses the photograph itself in its temporality and materiality (whether digital or printed and glued on cardboard) as well as the temporalities of the archive. The contribution concludes with reflections – 393 4 412 ABSTRACTS beyond the specific archive of the Georgia Project – on alternative (or parallel) archives, often created in less official ways; on different ways of photographing, with nonprofessional equipment in more amateur settings, for example with mobile phones; and finally, on the diffusion and iconization of specific monuments in non-academic contexts, mostly on the internet. Keywords Georgian and Armenian Art and Architecture; Documentary and Artistic Photography; Digital Photographic Archive; Cultural Heritage; Temporality. BYZANTIUM AND THE CHRISTIAN EAST IN THE MONNERET DE VILLARD COLLECTION OF THE ISTITUTO NAZIONALE DI ARCHEOLOGIA E STORIA DELL’ARTE Silvia Armando, Massimo Pomponi Ugo Monneret de Villard’s multifaceted scientific profile is mirrored in his several publications and in his wide-ranging archival materials, which encompass letters, work notes and more than 6,000 photographs. Monneret’s photographic archives are preserved at the Istituto Nazionale di Archeologia e Storia dell’Arte in Rome. Silvia Armando explores these rich and varied visual materials with a special focus on Byzantine art and the so-called Christian ‘Orient’: through the identification of various but consistent sub-groups of photographs it is possible to recompose different phases of Monneret’s scholarly trajectory, as well his methodological approaches and the network 394 of people who contributed to build his knowledge of the field. Monneret’s discovery of Byzantine monuments of Greece – undertaken with his friend Antonio Meli Lupi di Soragna in 1912 – is largely documented and illustrated by photographs which were both collected before the trip and taken on site. While the interest for architectural aspects is undoubtedly prominent, photographs of liturgical furnishings, mosaic and marble decoration are also part of the collection. Although less clearly documented, some pictures allow to shed new light on a visit to Amman: images of the Umayyad audience hall at the citadel are evidence of a keen interest for Islamic monuments, also attested in some pictures of Diyarbakır’s Great Mosque coming from Soragna’s collection. Other photographs, often collected from Italian and international photographic firms, demonstrate the scholars’ attention for Byzantine art and monuments in Italy. Other pictures of ‘Constantinople’ should be related to Monneret’s 1921 trip to Istanbul. A few pictures of Jerusalem also attest to a trip to the holy city. The archaeological missions to Egypt in the 1920s are very well-documented: hundreds of pictures relate to Monneret’s study of Coptic churches and monasteries, including the monastery of St. Simeon near Aswan, the White and Red Monasteries at Sohag, and several monuments in the Wadi Natrun. The archive folders often include graphic and photographic materials relating to previous campaigns led by other scholars or institutions, which allow to recompose the scholar’s network, as well as to reveal his accurate and systematic research approach. ABSTRACTS Besides photographs and drawings from Jacques de Morgan and the Comité de conservation des monuments de l’art arabe, the investigation of Christian Egyptian materials in the archives revealed an outstanding new discovery: the original watercolors painted by Jean Clédat at Sohag and Aswan in the early 20th century. Documentation concerning Monneret’s study of Nubian monuments (1928-1934) is also rich. Missions to Eastern Africa are closely related to Italian colonial expansion: Monneret carries out studies on the Christian kingdom of Aksum, and his direct involvement in the infamous transportation of the colossal stelae to Rome in 1937 – a grotesque celebration of the newly established Fascist Empire – is illustrated by dozens of photographs. On the other hand, the scholar’s promotion of Islamic art studies, in opposition to the scienza ufficiale and in cooperation with prominent anti-Fascists, suggests caution to any possible moral evaluation of Monneret’s ideological standing. Monneret’s INASA archives also include a series of beautiful panoramic photographs, which document his travels on the Nile and to several other Egyptian locations, as well as his visit to the so-called ‘desert castles’ of Great Syria. As a whole, the archives constitute an internal tool, helpful to reconstruct Monneret de Villard’s studies and approaches, but also a documentary reservoir with exceptional potential for new paths of research: only the systematic and collective study of these materials, together with their complete digitization, will allow for a very much anticipated and needed valorization. Massimo Pomponi’s contribution offers a new perspective on the importance of the Istituto Nazionale di Archeologia e Storia dell’Arte in the support and promotion of art historical studies in Italy, and on the role played by Ugo Monneret de Villard within this institution. The connections between its founder Corrado Ricci and the young Monneret date well before this moment and will carry on for decades. Under Ricci’s and Roberto Paribeni’s direction (1922-1934 and 1934-1944 respectively) the Istituto promotes research through funding and fellowships, as well as through publications. Monneret’s participation into the institute’s activities increases across the decades, until becoming a member of the Consiglio Direttivo in 1947. After Monneret’s death in 1954, his work archives were progressively donated to the INASA, which is still engaged in the preservation of these materials, while aiming towards a comprehensive digitization which will make these precious documents available to scholars. Keywords Ugo Monneret de Villard; Istituto Nazionale di Archeologia e Storia dell’Arte; Byzantine Architecture; Christian Egypt; East Africa. FROM THE UNESCO SALVAGE CAMPAIGN TO THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL ATLAS OF COPTIC LITERATURE : THE CHRISTIAN MONUMENTS OF EGYPT AND NUBIA IN THE PHOTOGRAPHIC ARCHIVES OF THE SAPIENZA EGYPTOLOGY EXPEDITIONS Paola Buzi Sapienza University hosts two photographic archives related to the Egyptological missions carried out in Egypt and Nubia by the chair of Egyptology, which are different from each 395 413 414 ABSTRACTS other yet complementary. The first of them consists of the photographic materials collected during the missions directed by Sergio Donadoni (Palermo 1914Rome 2015) since 1964, first in Sudan and then in Egypt. It is stored in the Museum of the Near East Egypt and the Mediterranean (MVOEM) of Sapienza. The second is much more recent, being the result of various missions conducted in Egypt, since 2016, as part of the scientific activities of the ERC project Tracking Papyrus and Parchment Paths: An Archaeological Atlas of Coptic Literature. It is housed in the 396 Department of History, Anthropology, Religions, Art and Performing Arts and is available to anyone who wants to use it. It focuses on late antique and early mediaeval urban and funerary buildings and the evidence of re-functionalization of pharaonic constructions as places connected to the Christian cult. Keywords Christian Nubia; Christian Egypt; Pictorial Cycles; Archaeology; Egyptology at Sapienza University of Rome. Prestampa Enrico D’Andrassi Finito di stampare nel mese di luglio 2022 presso la tipografia O.Gra.Ro. srl, Roma per conto della Campisano Editore srl - Roma 431