Monica Maffioli's Book 'Fotografi siciliani del Novecento' Chronicles 300 Photographers Across a Century

Key facts

• Monica Maffioli's Fotografi siciliani del Novecento was published by Giunti in June 2026.
• The book profiles 300 photographers and covers a century of Sicilian photography.
• The project originated with Giovanni Chiaramonte, who died in 2023 and had curated the 2003 exhibition La Nuova Scuola di Fotografia Siciliana.
• Maffioli conducted five years of research, beginning with the Biblioteca Nazionale di Firenze's Sicilian materials.
• The book examines two opposing cultural theses: Giovanni Gentile's indigenous culture and a lesser-known open, European Sicily.
• The narrative starts with the 1891 Esposizione Nazionale di Palermo and includes the Taormina school.
• In the 1920s, the Gazzetta della Fotografia, edited by Arturo Valle, introduced Piedmontese pictorialism to Sicily.
• Eugenio Bronzetti's 1940 photographic campaign for the Ente di Colonizzazione del Latifondo Siciliano illustrated a Carlo Emilio Gadda article in Le Vie d'Italia.
• The postwar magazine Sicilia, founded in 1953, was directed by Bruno Caruso and featured photographers Enzo Sellerio, Ferdinando Scianna, Giuseppe Leone and Melo Minnella.
• Luigi Pirrone's Futurist photographs have been held at the J. Paul Getty Museum since 1984, from Daniel Wolf's collection.
• Adele Gloria, an aeropainter, poet and photographer, is singled out as a figure likely to attract future interest.