Il teatro in posa nello studio dei fratelli Vianelli

Abstract

Although the name of the Fratelli Vianelli establishment is little known to most, their portraits accompany numerous essays on nineteenth-century theatre. Having lost the archive that documented forty years of activity, the investigation was carried out in the archives dedicated to the conservation of materials related to the theatre, where about one hundred and ninety photographs of actors, playwrights, singers, composers or musicians were found. In the course of the research, important links emerged between the Fratelli Vianelli and the publishing world, in particular with the publisher Ricordi, who in 1876 promoted a collection of life-size portraits made by Venetian photographers to the main artists of the time. Furthermore, immersing oneself in the photographs and paying particular attention to the handwritten dedications, it is possible to reconstruct friendships and work relationships within the theatrical environment and observe how the photographs first had a circulation of a private nature, and then opened up more and more to large-scale diffusion.