In 2017 the Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History purchased a set of two photographic albums by the brothers Antonio and Paolo Francesco D’Alessandri, featuring the Tiber banks during the period 1878–1888, thus becoming one of the few institutions to own both albums.
This photographic study, commissioned in 1887, documents the Tiber banks beforethe construction of the embankments as repeated flooding as well as the enlargementand modernisation of the new capital had forced the authorities to undertake such im- portant infrastructural measures. These photographs not only capture the exceptional beauty of the portrayed areas, but also represent precious evidence of Roman historical buildings, bridges and monuments that no longer exist.
In order to compare the old photographs with their current urban context and to illus-trate the development of significant urbanistic change, the Photographic Department ofthe Bibliotheca Hertziana commissioned its photographer Enrico Fontolan with a series of comparative images based on the work of the Fratelli D’Alessandri. The contemporary images often show narrow glimpses of what once was. In several cases it is almost impos- sible to recognize the original panorama: the city’s romantic and rural outline has been completely disrupted by the nature of modern human society and by the construction of new bridges, buildings or streets.
