PHOTO LIBRARY
The photographic patrimony of Fondazione Sella, non-profit organisation, preserves pictures relating to local history, mountains and much more. The collections and the photographic series listed below and kept at the Sella Foundation number over a hundred, some of which have been in the family’s possession since the second half of the 1800’s. The principal collections are those of Vittorio Sella, his brother Erminio, Giuseppe Venanzio, Venanzio, Cesare Sella, the Rossetti Photographic Studio, consisting of over 500,000 plates, and those of Vittorio Besso, who was the first to open a photographic studio in Biella in 1859. Of particular interest is the Ferrari collection with its 30,000 photographs, all on the subject of the alpine ranges from the Marittime to the Julian Alps. Also preserved, although not belonging to the collections or photographic series, are
pictures by George and Ashley Abraham, Felice Arrigo, captain and cartographer Felice Boffa Ballaran, Franco Bogge, Filippo De Filippi, William Frederick Donkin, Mario Fantin, Douglas William Freshfield, Wiléem Heckel, E. S. Kennedy, Giuseppe Merisio, Gottfried Merzbacher, Cesare Nebbia, Neer (Celesia), Francesco Negri, Giorgio Sommer, Georges father and son Tairraz and Manfredo Vanni. There are also other series connected with the various branches of the Sella family and members of related families, as well as pictures on other subjects by anonymous authors (Biella, the Biellese, mountains, industry, etc.). One series consists of about a thousand pictures of soldiers and military manoevres dating back to to the period between 1910 and 1930. The Foundation also preserves photographic equipment, an ancient dark room with a solar enlarger, papers (letters, diaries and documents) and related literature.
