Pietro Poppi

Pietro Poppi (29 April 1833 – 21 April 1914) was an Italian painter and photographer, active mainly in Bologna. Trained as a landscape painter, he became a professional photographer known for urban, architectural, artistic and documentary photography in nineteenth-century Bologna and Emilia-Romagna.

Poppi owned the photographic studio Fotografia dell'Emilia, a commercial establishment that produced and sold views, reproductions of works of art, architectural photographs, landscapes, stereoscopic images and printed catalogues. His work stands at the intersection of artistic training, photographic commerce, heritage documentation and the visual recording of urban transformation in post-unification Italy.

Poppi's surviving professional archive is held by the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio in Bologna. It consists of about 3,200 glass-plate negatives, made with collodion and gelatin silver processes, mostly in the 21 × 27 cm format, together with about the same number of albumen prints.

Early life and family

Poppi was born in Cento, then in the Papal States, on 29 April 1833. He came from a modest family and was the third of seven children. In 1850 he enrolled at the Scuola di Ornato of the Pontifical Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna (now the Accademia di Belle Arti di Bologna), where he also attended courses in perspective. The proximity of these early photographic studios, together with the artistic environment of Bologna, provided a context for the beginning of Poppi's photographic activity.

From 1865 Poppi is recorded as the proprietor of Fotografia dell'Emilia. In 1866 Poppi and Peli formed the firm Peli, Poppi & C., based in Via San Mamolo 102. The partnership remained active until 1867, after which Poppi returned to the Mercato di Mezzo premises and continued independently.

The historical reassessment of Poppi has emphasised this broader dimension. The 2015 exhibition catalogue edited by Cinzia Frisoni and published by Bononia University Press formed part of a wider project devoted to the conservation, digitisation, cataloguing and study of the Fondo Poppi. The International Center of Photography in New York preserves a group of works by Poppi, including albumen views of Bologna and related subjects, while the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the Institut national d'histoire de l'art and the Musée d'Orsay also record works or authority data relating to him.

Poppi's dual identity as painter and photographer was central to his work. His photographic catalogues presented him as a painter–photographer, and he retained a strong concern for perspective, architectural legibility, composition and the faithful description of place. This background helped to distinguish his studio from portrait-based photographic establishments, orienting it instead toward views, monuments, reproductions of artworks and the systematic documentation of built heritage.

Fotografia dell'Emilia

Fotografia dell'Emilia was active under Poppi's direction for several decades and became a professional photographic establishment specialising in urban descriptions, architectural views, reproductions of works of art, monuments and landscapes. Its business was based on the production of photographs for sale through printed catalogues, which placed Poppi's work between artistic production, documentary photography and the commercial photographic trade.

The studio's early subjects included the monuments and churches of Bologna, the Certosa cemetery, sculpture, the collections of the Regia Pinacoteca (now the Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna), and views of Ravenna. It also produced reproductions of paintings, drawings, sculptures and architectural details, making photography a tool for the circulation of artistic and architectural knowledge.

In 1871 Poppi issued the first catalogue of Fotografia dell'Emilia. It included about 400 images, with views of Bologna and Ravenna and reproductions of paintings in the Regia Pinacoteca.

The 1879 catalogue was published in French as Catalogue de la photographie de l'Emilia de Pietro Poppi peintre-photographe, and presented Poppi as a painter–photographer. The use of French reflected the commercial ambition of the studio and its desire to address a wider audience, including foreign travellers and collectors.

Photographic technique and studio practice

Poppi's surviving work belongs to the technical culture of nineteenth-century glass-plate photography. His archive includes negatives on glass made with collodion and gelatin silver processes, together with albumen prints.

The scale of the surviving archive, the printed catalogues and the variety of commercial formats indicate that Poppi worked within an organised professional establishment rather than as an isolated amateur. The studio practice involved negative production, printing, mounting, cataloguing and the sale of images in different formats, including albumen prints, cabinet cards, cartes de visite and stereoscopic photographs.

Bologna and urban documentation

Bologna and its monuments formed the core of Poppi's photographic enterprise. His work documented the city during a period of major transformation after the Unification of Italy. The Fondo Poppi is used as a visual source for the urban, architectural and social history of nineteenth-century Bologna and its territory.

Poppi's Bologna included both monumental and everyday subjects: the Two Towers, Piazza Maggiore, the basilicas, the Certosa cemetery, palaces, porticoes, railway spaces, institutional buildings, urban views and architectural details. The documentary value of these photographs became especially important thanks to the 1889 master plan for Bologna, whose implementation helped transform the historic city into a modern expanding urban centre.

Brescia was also incorporated into the studio's repertory. According to the Italian national catalogue, the city first appeared in Poppi's catalogue in 1883; the 1888 printed catalogue included seven photographs of Brescia, while the second appendix to the general catalogue, published in 1896, presented a larger group of 43 images.

The archive and catalogue records also show that Poppi's repertory included works from or relating to places outside Emilia-Romagna, including Lombardy, Tuscany, the Marche and the Veneto, either through his own photographic work or through album collections and the circulation of photographic repertories. This confirms the function of Fotografia dell'Emilia as a supplier of architectural and artistic images rather than a purely local view studio.

Still lifes, nature and cloud studies

Alongside monuments and urban views, Poppi also produced photographs of still lifes and natural subjects. A record for the photograph Camelie describes it as part of a group of still lifes begun by Poppi from the 1870s, with some subjects of this type already traceable in the 1879 printed catalogue; their presence increased in the catalogue of 1888.

A further group of works consists of cloud studies. A glass negative titled Studio di nubi, dated 1888–1890, is listed in the Fondo Poppi as a gelatin-on-glass negative taken in Bologna. The catalogue record notes that the plate appeared in the first appendix to the general catalogue in 1890, where eight similar images were grouped under the heading Studi di nubi with the indication preso dal vero, "taken from life".

Another catalogue entry on cloud imagery observes that Poppi made eight such studies, some focused on clouds alone and others including the urban profile of Bologna with towers, domes and bell towers in the background. These works broaden the understanding of Poppi's visual interests beyond topographical documentation, connecting his photographic practice with studies from nature, atmosphere and direct observation.

Rocchetta Mattei and Count Cesare Mattei

The Rocchetta Mattei series was one part of Poppi's broader activity as a photographer of architecture, monuments and places in transformation. It combines architectural documentation, commercial catalogue production and the representation of a private architectural project.

Among the most distinctive architectural subjects documented by Poppi was Rocchetta Mattei, the eclectic castle built by Count Cesare Mattei near Riola, in the Bolognese Apennines. A surviving negative entitled Rocchetta Mattei – Dall'interno e Rupe is dated 1879–1883 and described as a black-and-white collodion-on-glass negative measuring 27 × 21 cm. The place of the photograph is given as Grizzana Morandi.

Poppi's photographs of Rocchetta Mattei are valuable as historical documentation because they were made during Mattei's lifetime, while the complex was still being enlarged and altered. The Carisbo catalogue notes that Mattei laid the first stone of the Rocchetta on 5 November 1850 and that Poppi's photographs recorded additions, alterations and transformations of the complex.

According to Benedetta Basevi, Count Cesare Mattei commissioned Poppi, then established as a photographer in Bologna, to produce three photographic series of the Rocchetta. Cavanna also interprets the series as a collaborative or agreed project, writing that Poppi devoted numerous views to the Rocchetta during the years of Mattei's greatest electrohomeopathic success, apparently in agreement with Mattei, who could use the photographs for the many patients and visitors who came to Riola for his treatments.

The surviving correspondence shows that Poppi carried out the San Marino photography in October 1888, accompanied by his nephew Angelo Marzoli, and that the crates containing the photographs and albums reached San Marino in April 1889. The accompanying catalogue, edited by Cinzia Frisoni and published by Bononia University Press, was part of a project of conservation, digitisation, cataloguing and dissemination of the Fondo Poppi.

Works by Poppi are listed in the archives or authority files of several institutions outside Bologna, including the International Center of Photography in New York, the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the Institut national d'histoire de l'art and the Musée d'Orsay.

Archive and legacy

After Poppi transferred the business in 1907, the firm passed through later ownerships until its closure in 1921. Poppi's professional archive was acquired in 1940 by the Cassa di Risparmio in Bologna from Alfonso Zagnoli, the last successor of the photographic firm. It is now preserved by the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio in Bologna as the Fondo Poppi – Fotografia dell'Emilia.

The archive is a major source for the visual history of nineteenth-century Bologna and Emilia-Romagna because it preserves a large repertory of glass negatives and albumen prints documenting architecture, monuments, works of art, landscapes, and urban transformation. It also allows the reconstruction of Poppi's working method through catalogues, negative numbers, formats, subjects and later prints.

The historical importance of the archive has been reinforced by modern conservation and digitisation projects. The 2015 exhibition and catalogue were connected with the recovery, study and dissemination of the Fondo Poppi, one of the principal photographic resources for the history of nineteenth-century Bologna.

The Fondo Poppi demonstrates the relationship between painting, photography, commerce, heritage documentation and the printed photographic catalogue in nineteenth-century Italy. It also preserves evidence of a professional model in which the photographer was not only an image-maker but also a cataloguer, publisher, supplier of views and intermediary between monuments, institutions and the public.

Selected catalogues and publications

Catalogo della Fotografia dell'Emilia, Bologna, 1871. Catalogue de la Photographie de l'Emilia de Pietro Poppi peintre-photographe, Bologna, Tipografia Fava e Garagnani, 1879. Catalogue de la Photographie de l'Emilia de Pietro Poppi peintre-photographe, Bologna, Stabilimento Tipografico Successori Monti, 1883. Catalogo generale della Fotografia dell'Emilia di Pietro Poppi, Bologna, Tipografia Fava e Garagnani, 1888. Album di fotografie della Repubblica di San Marino, Bologna, 1889. Appendice I al Catalogo generale della Fotografia dell'Emilia di Pietro Poppi, Bologna, Tipografia Fava e Garagnani, 1890. Appendice 2a al Catalogo generale della Fotografia dell'Emilia di Pietro Poppi, Bologna, Premiata Tipografia L. Andreoli, 1896.