In March 1907 Elisa Calandrelli, also on behalf of her sister Ludovica, had made a gift of works and manuscripts that had belonged to her father Alessandro to the Biblioteca Vittorio Emanuele II. The printed works were divided according to content, while the papers, engravings and documents that related to the political history of 19th-century Italy passed to the Sezione Risorgimento (Critelli 2001).
From there, following the complex events that led to the creation of the Biblioteca di storia moderna e contemporanea, they became assets of the latter institution.
The iconographic collection was created for the purpose of collecting and handing down visual evidence of the experience of the Roman Republic of 1849. There is in fact no particular focus in it on one type of image. What appears to be the guiding principle is an emotional and ideological choice that privileges attention to a well-defined range of subjects, themes, and thus a value system: Rome and the Roman Republic. The photographs, like the other images in his collection, constitute a part of his own personal history as well as that of the Republic.
The images assumed a role of intermediation and connection between the viewer and the world of the heroic fighters of the Republic.
The Photographs
On the verso of all the photographs preserved in the Biblioteca di storia moderna e contemporanea, the handwritten name “Calandrelli” appears affixed (sometimes showing through on the front), in a central position, along with the accession number and the stamp of the former Biblioteca Vittorio Emanuele II.
If already “Caneva signed the photographs of Roman monuments as paintings” [1], Lecchi put his signature and date on the negative of some images and, almost always, also on the verso. Flachéron was also “used to date and sign his own calotypes (made between 1849 and 1852) in black ink on the negative, a habit that characterizes the blank signatures common to all his works” [2].
Starting with the notation "Calandrelli," I conducted research in the archives of the Biblioteca di storia moderna e contemporanea, which enabled me to ascertain that the photographs were part of Alessandro Calandrelli's collection. A former deputy to the Roman Constituent Assembly, he was a colonel in the army of the Republic and triumvir, along with Livio Mariani and Aurelio Saliceti, after the resignation of Mazzini, Saffi and Armellini. Through the Registro dei doni e diritti d’autore [Register of Gifts and Copyrights] of the Comitato per la storia del Risorgimento, I traced the date back to June 1914, when 685 documents, including photographs, were accessioned (numbered from 961321 to 962005) under the general heading of «documenti».
There is no record of the total number of photographs that were part of this acquisition, nor any further indication of the nature of the other items. It is probable that the series of photographs of Rome consisted of 41 images. This seems to be confirmed also by the copies that were made in the early 1900s, now preserved in the Museo Centrale del Risorgimento in Rome. In the Registro topografico delle immagini (vedute) of the same institution, they are always described as 41 “photographs of the places where important events took place during the siege” [3].
There must have been numerous images from 1849 in the Calandrelli Collection. Along with images that are strictly related to historical events, there are also classic views of Rome. We can presume that the images of places related to battles were inextricably connected, especially for people in exile, to memories of the city of Rome, of its classical ruins as well as of its other monuments.
The Calandrelli collection included also watercolors by Marchi, now preserved in the Museo Centrale del Risorgimento, which also have in the center of their versos the same handwritten annotation.
As was quite common in the period, Calandrelli also left sketches of the ramparts of the Janiculum during the siege which were included in the 1911 exhibition.
There is no particular focus on one type of image in the iconographic documentation collected by Alessandro. Without wanting to limit personal inclination, taste toward a certain image, what appears to be the guiding principle is an emotional and ideological choice that privileges attention to a well-defined range of subjects, themes, and thus a value system: Rome and the Roman Republic. These images do not reflect a glorification of the salient moments of the action: men in the classic poses of combat are absent. The photographs, like the other images in the collection, constitute a part of Calandrelli’s own personal history as well as that of the Roman Republic. Memory-commemoration makes use of them; he makes them his own instrument of support. Political ideals, Calandrelli’s own sensibility, and his personal relationships with the places and the men who fell there, are commingled in this personal museum-sanctuary, where considerable weight is given to the seduction of memory, and its preservation became the goal of the collection.
The images of the past, arranged we do not know in what order, become the monuments of remembrance, constitute an iconographic archive that makes it possible for him to preserve memory and actualize in remembrance emotions, impressions, affections. It can be assumed that the collection was the object of special attention by those who had participated in the events: the images assumed a role of intermediation and connection between the observer and the world of the heroic fighters of the Republic as if the possession of the images guaranteed durability and preserved memory.
The Donation
The complex and controversial events surrounding the donation of the Calandrelli collection to the state can be partly reconstructed by examining the documents in the archives of the Biblioteca di storia moderna e contemporanea and in particular the Relazione sulla donazione Calandrelli, 15 maggio 1916, Biblioteca Vittorio Emanuele. Sezione del Risorgimento.
The events of the Calandrelli donation are inextricably linked to the complex and troubled events leading to the establishment of the Biblioteca di storia moderna e contemporanea, which, as Carini Dainotti stated, “nothing more than a repurposing of what had been the Risorgimento section of the Biblioteca Vittorio Emanuele di Roma, the ‘Biblioteca Centrale del Risorgimento’, and later the institution Biblioteca Museo Archivio del Risorgimento” [4] (Carini Dainotti, 1952).
In March 1907 Elisa Calandrelli, also on behalf of her sister Ludovica, “made a verbal gift of various works and manuscripts that had belonged to her father” [5], but the director of the Biblioteca Vittorio Emanuele, Count Domenico Gnoli “never thinking, like the gentleman he was, that the generous donor would one day attempt to get her donation back […], left no detailed receipt” [6]. The printed works, recorded en bloc, were, according to content, divided into the various departments of the Library. The papers, engravings and documents that related to the political history of Italy in the last century were passed to the Risorgimento section where Calandrelli herself was allowed to order the donated material. The library should have subsequently given a more rational order to the material, but this didn’t happen. In 1909 the Comitato nazionale per la storia del Risorgimento italiano began to function, “with the purpose of collecting, preparing and ordering the documents, books and all other memoirs concerning the history of the Risorgimento” [7]. In 1911 the aforementioned Risorgimento exhibition was set up. The selected documents, and among them those belonging to Calandrelli, were handed over. In 1913 the exhibition committee, proceeded to relocate the material in envelopes when in early 1914. Elisa, seven years after the donation, “presented herself to the Chief Conservator of the Section of the Risorgimento to obtain a receipt of the works and papers she had donated and received the list from Ersilio Michel, who was in charge of the department. Calandrelli then complained to the Ministry of Public Education, which requested clarifications in a note dated November 17th, 1914, The Library, in a letter dated November 25th, provided the requested information: the difficulty lay in having inventoried with one overall record what had been entered in the Risorgimento Section. The portrait of the father that was in the exhibition on the 1911 had disappeared. Of the others there was no trace or recollection” [8]. In particular “they could not trace the papers of the siege of Rome” [9]. It is likely that these included photographs.
In a minute dated May 23rd, 1916, in the midst of the war climate, the director of the Comitato nazionale per la storia del Risorgimento writes to the Minister of Education that “Mrs. Calandrelli, [...] after nine years, no doubt for profit [...] has cited the Ministry of Education and the Library [...] before the Magistrate” [10]. It is interesting to note how, in the midst of the war climate, he felt compelled to specify, as if it were the only explanation for such an action, that in Elisa Calandrelli’s veins “runs German blood by maternal inheritance” [11].
Still on April 24th, 1933, the Minister of National Education, having received from the Ministry of the Royal Household a complaint from Ms. Elisa Calandrelli, wrote to the Conservator of the Biblioteca, Museo e Archivio del Risorgimento in St. Mark's Square. Conservator Menghini replied on April 28th about “the documents and memorabilia that belonged to her father, the valiant Colonel Alessandro Calandrelli, which she had ceded in 1907 to the Risorgimento Section, then united with the Biblioteca Vittorio Emanuele” [12] (Critelli 2001).
(Maria Pia Critelli)
[1] «Caneva firmava come quadri le fotografie dei monumenti romani»
[2] «solito datare e firmare le proprie calotipie (realizzate tra il 1849 e il 1852) ad inchiostro nero sul negativo, abitudine che caratterizza le firme in bianco comuni a tutte le sue opere»
[3] «fotografie di località ove si svolsero avvenimenti importanti durante l’assedio»
[4] «non è che un travestimento per quella che fu volta a volta la ‘Sezione Risorgimento’ della Biblioteca Vittorio Emanuele di Roma, la ‘Biblioteca Centrale del Risorgimento’, e poi il complesso ‘Biblioteca Museo Archivio del Risorgimento’»
[5] «fece dono verbale di varie opere e manoscritti che erano appartenuti al padre suo»
[6] «mai pensando da gentiluomo quale egli era, che chi generosamente dava, possa tentare un giorno o l’altro di riavere la cosa donata […] non rilasciò ricevuta particolareggiata»
[7] «con lo scopo di raccogliere, preparare e ordinare i documenti, i libri e tutte le altre memorie che riguardano la storia del Risorgimento»
[8] «si presentava al Conservatore capo della Sezione del Risorgimento per ottenere una ricevuta delle opere e delle carte da lei donate e ricevette l’elenco da Ersilio Michel, addetto alla Sezione. La Calandrelli fece allora reclamo al Ministero dell’Istruzione Pubblica che chiese, con una nota del 17 novembre 1914, chiarimenti. La Biblioteca, con una lettera del 25 novembre, forniva le notizie richieste: la difficoltà consisteva nell’avere inventariato con un’unica complessiva registrazione quanto era stato immesso nella Sezione Risorgimento. Il ritratto del padre che era alla mostra dell’11 era scomparso. Degli altri non c’era traccia o ricordo»
[9] «non hanno potuto rintracciare le carte dell’assedio di Roma»
[10] «la signora Calandrelli, […] dopo nove anni, senza dubbio a fine di lucro […] ha citato il Ministero dell’Istruzione e la Biblioteca […] davanti al Magistrato»
[11] «scorre sangue tedesco per eredità materna»
[12] «i documenti e cimeli appartenuti a suo padre, il valoroso colonnello Alessandro Calandrelli, da essa ceduti nel 1907 alla Sezione Risorgimento, unita allora alla Biblioteca Vittorio Emanuele»