Marco Andreani and Alessandro Giampaoli edited this splendid book, which incorporates a rich selection of documents from the Mario Giacomelli Archive (proofs, print notes, unpublished test prints, letters etc.) to piece together the creation and development of the two photographic series Giacomelli made inspired by poems by Giacomo Leopardi: Infinity and To Silvia.

The book reproduces the series in their entirety (presented in the order devised by Giacomelli), together with test prints, notes, and an unpublished reconstruction of To Silvia from 1964, which Giacomelli created according to Luigi Crocenzi’s screenplay. He overhauled this early version in 1988 (and disowned it, believing the illustration of the poem to be too literal).

The book includes a detailed exploration of the relationship between photography and poetry at the heart of Giacomelli’s practice. It traces the history of Italian photography in the 1960s and looks at the concept of the photo-story structure theorised by Crocenzi.

• Flexible cover: 112 pages
  Publisher: Silvana Editoriale (First edition 28 February 2019)
  Language: Italian
  Texts by Marco Andreani, Alessandro Giampaoli, Walter Liva