The project featuring the Croci Archive is being promoted by the Federico Zeri Foundation in liaison with the Bologna University Arts Library and aims to preserve, digitize and catalogue the 4,196 glass plates in the Archive belonging to the photographer Felice Croci (1880-1934).
The scientific purpose of studying these materials is to reconstruct the photographer’s working method, the chronology of his campaigns, his reasons for choosing certain subjects, the differing destinations of the plates, and his relations with patrons.
The Croci Archive is an important document for the history of photography in Bologna and is a rare example of a historical archive belonging to a photographer specialising in documenting the artistic heritage that still preserves its original composition.
It was purchased by the University in 1953. Rodolfo Pallucchini, director of The Art History Institute of the University, in 1950 called it: «the prime source of photographic material for the whole sector of Emilian art and artworks existing in Emilia…».
Taken between the first decade of the 20th century and 1934, the photos testify to the state of the Bologna art and monuments heritage before the destruction brought by war and the ensuing restoration. Most of them are not to be found in similar collections by the photographers Alinari, Anderson and Brogi.
Many glass plates show signs of retouching to harmonize the colour shades of the negative, outline subjects and adjust contrasts. This is hence documentation not just of the works depicted but also of the photographic techniques employed to enhance image fidelity at a time when ‘mechanical reproducion’ consistent with reality still required considerable intervention by hand.
Various types of material go to make up the collection, to a total of 5,521 phototypes. The bulk consists of 4,196 glass plate negatives (of varying sizes). There are also 1,301 positives mounted on card and kept in two metal filing containers. These are silver gelatin prints taken directly from Croci 21x27 plates by the Bolognese firm Fotofast in 1958 on behalf of the Art History Institute.
21x27 cm format plates make up the bulk of the photos. They stem from commissions by eminent art historians including Igino Benvenuto Supino and Adolfo Venturi, as well as Heinrich Boedmer who, as Director of the Florentine Kunsthistorisches Institut, commissioned Croci in 1925 to conduct a campaign on Bolognese home interior decoration in the 16th and 17th centuries.
The archive also contains a number of catalogues arranged by author or location. These served to manage customer orders and plates.
ENHANCEMENT
From the large amount of information we possess about the Croci Archive we were from the start able to compile a Photographic Collection File (called FF file) which may be consulted from the online catalogue EXPLORE THE COLLECTIONS. The FF file supplies detailed information as to the content and characteristics of the archive, and forms the starting point for cataloguing individual phototypes.
The ensuing phototype files (or ‘F files’) are being published within the Zeri Foundation database which in fact forms the integral catalogue of Bologna University art photo archives, further enriched by materials in the Supino Photoarchive.
View the files of the Croci Archive online: https://bit.ly/3yoYu4q