Where do dreams begin?

Fabrizio Massari and I shared a dream over 20 years ago.

I don’t recall how we first became friends, living in towns 80 miles apart. Fabrizio collected camera, while I collected the sort of photographs that his cameras might have made. We met at flea markets, swapped news, then we joked about the idea of opening a museum together…

Recently I found a copy of the original project that we drew up for a small museum dedicated to the History of Photography. We offered to loan our collections for permanent exhibition in Spoleto, the town where I live in Italy. Spoleto wasn’t interested. They were building a museum of contemporary art under the guidance of an art critic, Giovanni Carandente, and photography was not on the menu…

Our dream died there, or so it seemed.

But a year ago, Fabrizio phoned me one day. He had found a sponsor and a space for our project in Matelica, the town where he lives in the Marches. Our dream was brought to life again, but could we make it a reality?

With initial financing and exhibition space provided by a generous local cultural/social foundation named “Il Vallato,” our museum opened its doors last Saturday, October 25th, 2025, and hundreds of people turned up. Dedicated to the Simonetti family (they were the first photographers in Matelica), our Bottega Immagini (The Image Workshop) combines a large exhibition space for historical photographs and the cameras that made them, together with a darkroom, a studio space, and ample wall space for temporary exhibitions of analogical photographs.

It truly is a dream come true!

It could not have been achieved without the constant presence and endeavour of Fabrizio Massari (to whom I am eternally grateful), and the joyful band of young enthusiasts in Matelica, led by our President, Simone Bomprezzi, who did all the shoulder work, the lifting, carrying, cleaning and decorating.

If you happen to visit the Adriatic coast, you might care to look in and say hello.

Michael G. Jacob, Spoleto.    

This link provides a glimpse: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATz1cET2CJ8

The Biblioteca Panizzi, an Italian national library, is based in Reggio Emilia, Italy. Two years ago, I made a donation of over 100 daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, and ferrotypes to supplement their holdings. One year later, after this material had been catalogued, scanned and conserved, I made a second offer, which was also accepted. My “Post Mortem Collection” consists of daguerreotypes, ambrotypes and paper images of corpses, mourners, chapels, churchyards and graves.

I am very pleased to announce that the material will be on show at the Biblioteca Panizzi in two separate exhibitions as part of Fotografia Europa 2025. I’ll be talking about the post mortem collection, and the brief guide-catalogue of the collection, which is entitled “Ricordati di me” (Remember me) in Reggio Emilia on 26th April.

If you are going on holiday in Italy, don’t miss

ATTRAVERSO LA LUCE – BY MEANS OF LIGHT

The first 20 years of photography in the collection of the Biblioteca Panizzi, Reggio Emilia, Italy.

24th April – 5th July, 2025.

Edward Wade (1829-1869, but dates uncertain) of Preston was listed by Gillian Jones in “Lancashire Professional Photographers 1840-1940” (pub. 2004). In 1860, Wade announced that he had moved to “more commodious premises” at number 36 Fishergate, and he offered to rent number 117 Fishergate (his old/first studio?). Wade remained at number 36 Fishergate until May, 1869, when he posted a notice in The Preston Chronicle to announced his retirement, and the sale of his negatives, cameras and equipment.

No mention is made of Wade as a daguerreotypist in the Heathcoates’ A Faithful Likeness.

We can safely assume that he had been busy making carte-de-visites for almost a decade, but how did he become a photographer, and, most importantly, when did he take this daguerreotype?

With the generous help of BPH member, Rob Whalley, who has provided much valuable information, I have been trying to establish the facts relating to a daguerreotype which I found very recently. The leather case imprinted with the logo of E. Wade, appears to be a product of the mid- to late 1840s, but Edward Wade would only have been about 18 years old at that time…

In trying to unveil this enigma, I would appeal for help to anyone who knows of the existence of other daguerreotypes marked E. Wade, 117, Fishergate, Preston.

Well, it has finally arrived, the book that carte de visite collectors have been expecting all their lives.

CARTOMANIA by Paul Frecker (September Publishing, 2024) is a thumping good read – 474 pages and over 500 wonderful illustrations. Frecker calls it a labour of love, but it is so much more. The text is written with dry humour and evident expertise, amply quoting the sort of documentation you would find, perhaps, in the British Library after many months, or even years of arduous searching. Indeed, this marvellous tome brings to light a world of evidence from period journals and newspapers to chart the spectacular rise and the eventual fall of the gleaming star which brought photography to the general public, altering and moulding tastes and habits as no earlier photographic process had done. I was particularly impressed by the chapters and illustrations relating to Death and Mourning, Copyright and Piracy, and Origins, but there are chapters for all, paying careful attention to Photographers, The Sitting, Royalty, Courtesans, Armchair Travellers, and so on. The illustrations are taken from the extensive and extraordinary collection of the author, which ought to be preserved for the nation.

While waiting for the nation to wake up, buy the book!

If you are a cartomaniac like me, you will definitely be interested in a new book on the subject by renowned collector, Paul Frecker, which is scheduled for release next week, and can be pre-ordered now. 

Paul is also giving an online talk about the carte-de-visit on 18 July. 

Cartomania: Celebrity, Deception and Identity
Online, free, at 1800 (BST) | 1900 (CET)
Register here

This excellent, well-illustrated monograph examines in detail the career of Francois (a.k.a. Philibert) Perraud, a French daguerreotypist who travelled through Italy and Greece in the 1840s, leaving behind a still-to-be-uncovered wealth of material which still occasionally surfaces. His best known images of Greek monuments now reside with the J. P. Getty Museum, Los Angeles, but this fine monograph reveals the scope of his career and marks him out as a genuine pioneer. The original research of exceptional interest is by the author, Roberto Caccialanza. There is an excellent 15-page English abstract, though the text is in Italian. Publisher: photography:k | series (ISBN 979-12-21422-05-4).  

I have been collecting photographica (1839-1880) for over forty years, and the time has come for me to decide what to do with all the material that I have accumulated, which amounts to over 700 daguerreotypes and ambrotypes, and a host of fine cdvs, albumen prints, family albums, and so on.

I have no heirs and I am not a keen salesman, so I reached an important decision, which I have begun to put them into effect. No-one is going to buy my entire collection, I reasoned, but some institution might like to own the better parts of it.

In a word, I decided to donate!

It would be wonderful to donate an entire collection to a dedicated institution, but that will never happen. Firstly, the material would duplicate what any photographic museum would consider the core of its collection. Secondly, the quality of the material in a collection is variable. While I have found some wonderful and/or historically important pieces, there is a lot which is of great interest to me, but which would find no place in a national or a regional collection.

I decided to offer only material which might enrich or expand collections which already exist.

I would like to be remembered as a donor, obviously. More importantly, I would like the material that I have gathered to play some part in the formation of future generations of photo historians and photo collectors. I approached institutions in England where I was born, and in Italy, where I live, describing the contents of my collection, and I received encouraging replies from two museums which were interested in considering at least a part of my holdings.

I visited the museum in England which had expressed an interest, and immediately withdrew my offer to donate. The museum had been revamped since my last visit, which meant they had gone digital, so most of the original material was locked in the vault. I favour hands-on, and real exhibits. In my opinion they had ruined what was once the perfect museum, i.e, a miscellaneous collection of the weird and the wonderful.

After disappointment in England, I turned to the institution in Italy.

The Biblioteca Panizzi, an Italian national library, based in Reggio Emilia sent the head of their photographic collection, a noted photohistorian, and a conservator to visit me at my home and see what I was offering. In the course of two days we examined much of the material, and we reached an agreement. In the first instance, I proposed to donate my so-called “Teaching Collection,” which consists of material that I have used over the years while teaching the history of early photographic processes. This amounted to over 100 daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, and ferrotypes. One year later, after this material had been catalogued, scanned and conserved, I made them a second offer, which was also accepted: my “Post Mortem Collection,” which consists of daguerreotype, ambrotype and cdvs images of corpses, mourners, chapels, churchyards and graves.

At the moment, I am contemplating a third donation which has still to be formalised.

The pleasure of donating, as I boldly entitled this note, comes from knowing that the sections of my collection which I love dearly, and which have some importance in the history of photography, will be available to anyone like me, who is fascinated by the visual technology of the nineteenth century.

https://www.bibliotecapanizzi.it/2023/03/michael-g-jacob-e-i-dagherrotipi-post-mortem/