The archive contains the photographic records compiled by some of the mountaineers who took part in the victorious expedition to K2 in 1954. The authors of the pictures are Ugo Angelino,Cirillo Floreanini, Guido Pagani, Gino Soldà and Sergio Viotto (the largest group).

An expedition was organised by the Town Council of Biella to the mountains of the Peruvian Andes in 1963 with the aim of studying the geology of the Andes. The mountaineers and authors of the pictures were: Giancarlo Bortolami, Giuseppe Calogero, Carlo Pivano, Fulvio Ratto, Franco Riva and Bruno Taiana.

Almost 500,000 plates produced by three generations of the Rossetti family (the father Simone, sons Alfredo and Oreste, niece Rosalba) portray life in Biella and the Biellese over a century, from 1880 to 1980.

A keen mountaineer, he was a member of the Italian Alpine Club and an amateur photographer. Antonio Tosso produced hundreds of pictures of the Biellese especially in the surroundings of Oropa where from 1931 to 1950 he managed the café and cake shop “Colombino”, now the Caffè Deiro. Previously he had been employed at Boglietti Knitwear.

Engineer and public figure, Adriano Tournon joined the Subalpine Photography Society as a young man. In 1907 he was one of the organisers and judges at the  International Exhibition of Turin and in 1909 he published two articles in “Artistic Photography”.

Partly on account of his role as first chairman of the Biella section of C.A.I Domenico Vallino became a great friend of Vittorio Sella with whom he published a book entitled: “Monte Rosa and Gressoney” in 1890.

A keen mountaineer and Biellese photographer, his pictures were published in various books and magazines and many were used as postcards.