Vincent Jolivet's 'Ruines italiennes' Explores Alinari Photographs of Italian Ruins

Vincent Jolivet, a scholar specializing in Hellenistic Etruscan and Roman worlds, has authored 'Ruines italiennes,' a book published by Editions Gallimard that examines Italy's ruins through the photographic collection of the Alinari brothers. Their studio was established in Florence in 1852. The photographs, taken between 1850 and 1900 by Alinari as well as Brogi, Crupi, the Andersons, and Mac Pherson, inspired painters of the Grand Tour who reproduced famous Roman sites. The book offers a fresh perspective on archaeological sites such as Pompeii, Etruscan Tuscany, Greek Italy from Campania to Sicily, Villa Adriana, Paestum, Herculaneum, Verona, Perugia, and Subiaco. These ruins were partially discovered by André Suarès, who led friends in the footsteps of Emperor Augustus. The 18th-century interest in ruins, succeeding drawings and engravings by Hubert Robert, Piranesi, Turner, and Viollet-le-Duc, is contextualized within a history that includes Colbert, who founded the French Academy in Rome in 1666, and the Caffè Greco, where early calotypists gathered around Caneva. Jolivet's work presents an encyclopedic collection of Italian heritage photographed with formal rigor.