New perspectives on Supino photo archive: fourteenth-century Pisan sculpture through the lens of Alinari and Ammagliati

Abstract

This essay is focused on the photo archive belonging to Igino Benvenuto Supino, including more than 8,000 photographs, preserved in Bologna in the Department of Art's photo library named after him. In this paper I want to illustrate the content and history of his photo archive, donated to the University of Bologna by his heirs in the ‘50s, as well as the role of Igino Supino in the expansion of the University Photo Library. The attention of Supino towards photographic documentation to support teaching and historical-artistic research distinguishes his teaching at the University of Bologna. Here I introduce Supino’s photographic collection relating to the fourteenth century sculpture in Pisa and the works of art of Bargello Museum in Florence, that testify the collaboration of Igino Supino with Alinari photographers and Pietro Ammagliati, a pisan photographer specialized in reproducing works of art.