World History and Culture: Saint-Petersburg to launch "Industrial Italy. 1920-1960" photo exhibition

The exhibition "Industrial Italy. 1920-1960. Photographs by Girolamo Bombelli from the Сollection of the Central Institute for Cataloguing and Documentation (ICCD), Rome" will run from December 2, 2020, to January 24, 2021, at the State Museum and Exhibition Centre ROSPHOTO (Saint-Petersburg). It was arranged in cooperation with the Italian Institute of Culture.

Photographs of the Bombelli Foundation show an active industrial Italy at the beginning of big business - a time of launching future legendary brands.

The photographs were ordered by the businessmen, who wanted to record their industrial buildings and territories, productive processes, modern equipment, infrastructure for workers and their families. The photographs included in the exhibition are showcased to the general public for the first time. They are part of the archive of Girolamo Bombelli (Milan, 1882-1969) and his partner Luigi Cattaneo, who worked in Lombardy between 1920 and 1960.

The personality of Bombelli is still mysterious. His archive mainly consists of photographs of art objects, which he made for collectors and auction houses, and only a small part relates to industrial sites. But this part is a vivid evidence of the time, a significant contribution to the image of Italy of the first half of the XX century.