Biographies

(1889-1933)
Born in Turin he died on Easter Day 1933, falling into a crevasse of the Vedret da Morterasch, in the Bernina range.

(1825 – 1904)
Photographer, mountaineer and chemist of Strasbourg. In 1875 his photographs were sold in Berne and Geneva and he had his negatives printed in the laboratories of professionals Vollenweit based in Berne and Strasbourg.

(1900 – 1979)
Engineer Giovanni Bertoglio (1900-1979) was publisher of the “Monthly Magazine” of the CAI (Italian Alpine Club) from 1953 to 1976. Bertoglio was also chairman of the National Library of the CAI.

(1828 – 1895)
Son of Bartolomeo and Anna Zerbino, at the age of 13 Vittorio attended the painting school of Grenoble following in the footsteps of his maternal grandfather, Matteo Zerbino of Callabiana, pupil and collaborator of Bernardino Galliari, the famous set designer of Andorno.

The collection includes the pictures found and acquired by researchers and coordinated by V. Castronovo as part of the “Biellesi nel mondo” project promoted by the Gruppo Banca Sella begun in the 1980’s.

(1880 – 1933)
Manager at the Boglietti Knitwear factory of Biella he started out as a business agent, a job which gave him the opportunity to travel extensively. His travels are carefully documented as well as his hikes on the mountains of the western Biellese.

(1861 – 1934)
Elizabeth Burnaby co-founded the “Ladies Alpine Club”, and was its first chairwoman. One of the first and most famous female mountaineers, she wrote many very successful and popular books and produced a catalogue containing over 600 of her own photographs. 

(1909 – 2009)
Riccardo Cassin was one of the greatest Italian mountaineers of worldwide fame. His name is associated particularly with his reconnaissance expedition to K2 in 1953, a trip which proved to be extremely important for the conquest of the summit, achieved for the first time the following year, although Cassin was obliged to remain in Italy.

(1880 – 1973)
Corti was a teacher of anatomy, a mountaineer and academic of the CAI (Italian Alpine Club), member of the Italian photogroup, honorary member of the C.A.I., for whose magazines and books he provided many pictures.

(1851 – 1917)
Hungarian mountaineer, writer and photographer, de Déchy wrote an important work in three volumes on the Caucasus. He was a member of the Alpine Club of London and of the CAI.

(1873 – 1933)
Third born of Amedeo d’Aosta and nephew of Vittorio Emanuele II, Luigi Amedeo di Savoia was known internationally for his fame as an explorer. His sense of adventure drove him to tackle major ascents on the principal mountain ranges in the world and sent him across the seas of the entire globe.

(1851 – 1921)
Oskar Eckenstein, Austrian mountaineer, who organised a reconnaissance expedition to K2 in1902. The members of the expedition were: Crowley, Jacot-Guillarmond, Wessely, Knowles.

(1869 – 1936)
A doctor in Turin and keen mountaineer, he collected forty thousand pictures between the end of the 1800’s and the early Nineteen Thirties. He was a leading member of the Italian Alpine Club and the “Gruppo Italiano Scrittori di Montagna” (Italian Group of Mountain Writers).

(1922 – 1998)
An employee of ENEL*, he was a keen photographer who enjoyed experimenting with new techniques. Protagonist of various exhibitions in Biella and in Italy, his photographs were often displayed together with the work of contemporary visual artists.

(1879 – 1964)
Born in the Aosta Valley where he later worked, he was an amateur photographer and mountaineer, almost unknown to the press of the time. He was co-founder of CAI UGET of Turin. Gallino wrote an impressive record of all his climbs, illustrated with numerous drawings and photographs which provide important documentation of the history of mountaineering of that time.

(1870 – 1945)
A textile industrialist, he was also an explorer and mountaineer, friend and expedition companion of Vittorio Sella to the Caucasus (1896). In his youth, like two other photographers of the Biellese area Luigi Borsetti and Antonio Tosso, he worked at the Bellia Knitwear factory in Pettinengo and at the Boglietti Knitwear factory in Biella.

(1901 – 2003)
Federico, nephew of Gaspare, one of the most important neoclassical architects in Biella, and son of Salvatore, an engineer specialised in the construction of railway lines, enrolled in 1919-1920 at the Polytechnic of Turin. He graduated in 1925, presenting a project on the construction of a railway line between Biella and Ivrea, including a tunnel under the Serra.

(1926 – 1996)
Biellese journalist Pietro Minoli (1926-1996) contributed to the editions of the local newspapers “Eco di Biella” and to the city news pages of “La Stampa”, he was a local news reporter for the national paper “Il Corriere della Sera” from 1954.

(1884 – 1957)
Son of Felice, descendant of an important family of textile industrialists of Pollone, his name is particularly associated with mountain climbing (he was the first to climb the Matterhorn by the Furggen crest in 1911), and his travels outside Europe in the Caucasus (1910) and the Himalayas (1913).

(1861 – 1935)
Son of Giacomo Vincenzo (1833-1907) and Lidia Mongenet. His father was an entrepreneur and deputy in the sub-alpine parliament and later in the Italian parliament. Industrialist, photographer, mountaineer and writer, he was regarded as one of the most famous exponents of Italian pictorialist photography.

(1853 – 1931)
Antonio Sella was born in Zumaglia into a family of farmers. When he was six years old his father died and Antonio abandoned his studies in order to help his mother and young brothers in the fields. At the age of ten he moved to Germany with a friend and began to work in hotels where, thanks to his intelligence, he was soon given important jobs.

(1855 – 1936)
Son of the wool entrepreneur Giuseppe Venanzio Sella and Clementina Mosca Riatel. After the sudden death of his father in 1876, he gave up his studies and took over the management of the Maurizio Sella Wool Mill until the Nineteen Twenties.

(1889 – 1971)
Son of Vittorio (second branch) and of Linda Mosca. Reserve Officer in the Engineer Corps during the wars (1911 and 1915-18), then Lieutenant Colonel of the reserve. He was an aviator and also a farmer at the «Sella & Mosca» farm of Alghero.

(1865 – 1948)
Son of Giuseppe Venanzio, industrialist, chemist and keen Biellese photographer, and of Clementina Mosca Riatel, Erminio graduated in 1887 in Engineering at the University of Turin and later specialised in Meteorological Sciences at the University of Berlin.

(1860 – 1934)
Son of Giuseppe Venanzio, brother of Vittorio and Erminio, Gaudenzio accompanied them on numerous first winter ascents in the Alps. In 1892 he designed and was in charge of the construction of the Capanna Margherita (Margherita Hut) on the Punta Gnifetti of Monte Rosa. A graduate in engineering, in 1886 he founded the bank of the same name which he managed until his death.

(1823 – 1876)
Son of Maurizio and Rosa Sella, Giuseppe Venanzio Sella was born in Sella di Mosso on 10 July 1823. After completing a philosophy course at the Royal College he continued his studies in Turin where he attended both business school and chemistry lessons.

(1827 – 1884)
Fifth son of the twenty children of Maurizio and Rosa Sella, Quintino was born in Sella di Mosso in 1827. Sent by his father to study Hydraulic Engineering he graduated at the age of twenty at the University of Turin.

(1883 – 1957)
Cousin of Vittorio and Erminio Sella, he accompanied them on mountaineering excursions. Keen photographer. Volunteer in the Great War.

(1901 – 1990)
Son of Gaudenzio (1860-1934) (second branch) and Gertrude Boswell (1867-1956), he graduated with honours in Jurisprudence at the University of Turin in 1933, discussing a thesis on the Statutes of Mosso. An expert on the history of the Biellese and in particular of Oropa, in 1935 he worked with his cousin Emanuele Sella on the treatise about the Sanctuary.

(1859 – 1943)
Vittorio Sella was born in Biella on 28 August 1859 of Giuseppe Venanzio and Clementina Mosca Riatel. He learnt the rudiments of photography from his father, a textile entrepreneur, photography expert and author of Il plico del fotografo, the first theoretical and practical treatise on photography.

(1880 – 1965)
Amateur photographer, painter and mountaineeer. At first he was employed at the Boglietti Knitwear factory; then he managed the cafè and cake shop “Colombino” (1931-1950), then “Caffè Dejro” in Oropa. He was a member of the Pietro Micca Gymnastics Society and of the   Biella branch of the CAI (Italian Alpine Club).

(1883 – 1978)
Son of Ottone, Lieutenant General Commander of the IX Army Corps and Senator of the Realm from 1900, and Adele Camerana, sister of the magistrate and poet Giovanni. He graduated in engineering at the Polytechnic of Turin in 1906.

(1842 – 1913)
Receiver of the Royal lottery he moved to Biella in 1870. He became the first secretary of the Biellese branch of the CAI (Italian Alpine Club) in 1872, at the head of which the following year he published the “Guida per gite ed escursioni nel Biellese” (“Guide to walks and excursions in the Biellese”).

(1859 – 1921)
Photographer, free-lance journalist and mountaineer, he was an active member of the Biella branch of the CAI.