In Light of Rome

This comprehensive study of Romes contribution to the early history of photography traces the mediums rise from a fledgling science to a dynamic form of artistic expression that forever changed the way we perceive the Eternal City. The authors examine the diverse transnational group of photographers who thrived in the cosmopolitan art center of Romeand the pivotal role they played in the refinement and technical development of the nascent medium in the nineteenth century. The book ranges from the earliest pioneersthe French daguerreotypist Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey and the Welsh calotypist Calvert Richard Jonesto the work of the Roman School of Photography and its successors, among them James Anderson and Robert Macpherson of Britain; Frdric Flachron, Firmin Eugne Le Dien, and Gustave Le Gray of France; and Giacomo Caneva, Adriano de Bonis, and Pietro Dovizielli of Italy. Lavishly illustrated with 112 plates, many never before published, by nearly fifty practitioners, this volume expands our understanding of the place of Rome in early photography. An exhibition of the same title, to open at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art in December 2022, accompanies this study.