Fotokampagne an der Marcus-Säule in Rom, 1955 (D-DAI-ROM-55.946) © DAI // Johannes Felbermeyer
Photo Archive
Profile
The photo archive of the DAI Rome is one of the largest specialised photo collections in Italy, and its beginnings date as far back as the 19th century. The collection comprises over 300,000 images, including approximately 200,000 glass, nitrate, acetate and safety negatives. The majority of the photographs are black and white, but there are also large quantities of colour slides. The holdings concerning sculpture are particularly extensive, both with regard to the statuary and to the reliefs. Another important focus is on the topographic collection which comprises photographs of sites and their monuments. Its emphasis is on archaeological monuments in Rome, Italy, and North Africa, and it also includes photographs from the entire Mediterranean and furthermore from important archaeological collections worldwide. Most of the negatives are the outcome of the Rome Department's own photo campaigns and projects and were taken by the institute's photographers.
The collection continuously being expanded through the implementation of new photo campaigns but also through the acquisition of legacies. The institute's archaeological research projects account for a significant part of the photo archives growth, which in recent years has led to large photo collections, especially as regards the Basilica Aemilia and the Basilica Iulia in Rome, the site of Selinunte in Sicily, Apollonia in Albania, and Chimtou in Tunisia. Special projects like the full photographic recording of the antiquities at Palazzo Spada and Palazzo Colonna in Rome, as well as the partial holdings at the Vatican have enriched the collection in recent years. Further additions stem from noteworthy research projects in Italy, including the one funded by the Volkswagen Foundation in charge of registering more than 10,000 stone monuments in Central Italy.
Address & Contact
Via Sardegna 79-81
00187 Roma
Tel. +39 / 06 / 488 81470
E-mail: fotothek.rom@dainst.de
Opening Hours
During the period of refurbishing work at the building in Via Sardegna, the photo archive remains inaccessible. Personal appointments are possible only through registration by e-mail to daria.lanzuolo@dainst.de.
Services And Image Orders
Photographs from the holdings of the photo archive can be ordered as digital images. Enquiries and orders can be made by e-mail to fotothek.rom@dainst.de or via the online database iDAI.objects (https://arachne.dainst.org/).
Fees are charged for research carried out by us, for prints or digitised images, and for permission to publish. These are kept very low for scientific use.
General Terms and Conditions for Image Acquisition and Image Rights (PDF)
Fees for DAI media services for academic use (PDF)
History of the Photo Library
Since the invention of photography, the Rome Department of the DAI has been collecting and working with images. Already in the mid-19th century, Gustav Reiger, a Munich photographer of high repute among Rome's scholarly and artistic communities, became a pioneer in this field during his assignment before 1856 for Emil Braun, the then director of the Instituto di Corrispondenza Archeologica on Capitoline Hill. By the early 20th century, the department began with the implementation of a systematic inventory of the meantime considerably increased photographic stock. A ground-breaking event was when Walther Amelung, bequeathed his own research collection to the institute in his will at his passing in 1927. His successor as 1st secretary, Ludwig Curtius, began with systematic establishment and expansion the photo library's in 1928, which since then has kept on until the present day. A position for an in-house photographer was created in the early 1930s, and a laboratory was created as well. The prerequisites were hence provided to undertake extensive photographic campaigns and to thus expand the own collections, whose focusses have been continually evolving since over the years.
In addition to the photographic projects that accompany the department's research ventures, the institute also cooperates with various international scholars for the elaboration of dedicated projects, in which the photographic work is of central significance. These for instance include a scheme funded by the Volkswagen Foundation and carried out between 1981 and 1984 to systematically document all stone monuments known in Central Italy and Puglia. More recently, a project lasting for several years for the first time was aimed at recording the entire collection of antiquities kept in the Palazzo Colonna in Rome.
The Holdings And Their Cataloguing
The photo library at the DAI in Rome preserves more than 200,000 photographic negatives created according to various techniques and in formats, the systematic collection of which goes back to the 1890s. These negatives came into possession of the Rome Department through a variety of ways subsequent to photographic campaigns, commissioned works, but also through purchasing, bequests, and donations. The negative collection of the DAI, therefore, consists of a great number of relatively small and also large individual holdings.
