The Museum of the History of Photography Fratelli Alinari was inaugurated in 1985 by Sandro Pertini, at the time President of Italy. Its primary function is the preservation of 350,000 vintage prints, including albumen prints, prints on salt paper, calotypes, daguerreotypes, ambrotypes and stereoscopic prints.
The Museum contains works by many of the greatest photographers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Italy is represented by the works of Alinari, Anderson, Caneva, Nunes Vais, Primoli, Beato, Ponti, Naya, Wulz, Mollino, Peretti Griva, Baravalle and Balocchi. The museum contains, as well, works by MacPherson, Sommer, Bernoud, Graham, Rive, Flacheron, Von Gloeden, Robertson, Fenton, Bourne and Brandt.
The Museum also boasts important collections of cameras, lenses, and early photographic equipment and paraphernalia -- including an imposing selection of photo albums, frames and advertising gadgets, both of Italian and of foreign make.
In 1985 the Museum began a program of exhibitions, with three principal themes: the history of photography, semiology, and individual contemporary photographers.

Via della Vigna nuova 16. Tel. 055- 23951 fax 055-2382857