Agostino Ferrari

The Ferrari collection consists of almost 40,000 pictures collected during the life of the Turinese doctor Agostino Ferrari, a leading member of the Italian Alpine Club, promoter and founder of the ‘Italian Group of Mountain Writers’. The whole collection consists of over a hundred albums, divided according to the various mountain regions of Italy, Europe and beyond, as well as over thirty boxes containing loose photos. After examining the lists personally printed by Ferrari and the names mentioned in the albums but not present in the original lists, more than 800 names were identified of mountain photographers who lived between the end of the 1800’s and the first decades of the 1900’s. These included: Cesare Giulio, Vittorio Sella, Wehrli, Tairraz, Abraham, Vallepiana, Donkin, Dainelli, De Cessole, Neer (Celesia), Gugliermina, Freppaz, Frusta, Gabinio, Kennedy, Merzbacher, Negri, Nebbia, Paganini, Montandon, Ravelli, Rey, Terschak, Sacco, Santi etc.. Also worthy of note are the portraits of the mountaineers and alpine guides of the time. The photographs by Vittorio Sella, some contained in monographic albums, number over a thousand.