A keen mountaineer and Biellese photographer, his pictures were published in various books and magazines and many were used as postcards. The Foundation conserves about 50 of Giovanni Varale’s negatives, of significance because they portray the most important mountaineers and guides of the period  including a photograph of Whymper, the first conqueror of the Matterhorn, taken in Courmayeur in 1892 before he climbed Mont Blanc. The collection also contains several pictures of alpine huts and bivouacs.