Don Nicola Jobbi's Photographs of Abruzzo's Mountain Communities on View in Rome

An exhibition in Rome highlights the black-and-white photography of Don Nicola Jobbi, an anthropologist-priest born in 1934 in Mosciano Sant'Angelo. From the late 1950s onward, he chronicled the mountain communities of Abruzzo, illustrating a secluded world that emphasizes the bond between people and their rugged environment. His photographs depict proud peasants, grieving women participating in magical-religious ceremonies, adolescents in processions, and herds in transhumance. Spanning the Gran Sasso massif to the Monti della Laga, Jobbi's work preserves a rich cultural legacy. He engaged in intellectual correspondence with notable figures like Anna Bella Rossi and Paolo Toschi. The images often feature elderly women in everyday moments, encapsulating fundamental human experiences against the backdrop of nature’s cycles and masked rituals that intertwine pagan and Christian traditions.