© 2018 Donata Panizza ALL RIGHTS RESERVED OVEREXPOSING FLORENCE: JOURNEYS THROUGH PHOTOGRAPHY, CINEMA, TOURISM, AND URBAN SPACE by DONATA PANIZZA A dissertation submitted to the School of Graduate Studies Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey In partial fulfillment of the requirements For the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Program in Italian Written under the direction of Professor Rhiannon Noel Welch And approved by ________________________________ ________________________________ ________________________________ ________________________________ New Brunswick, New Jersey OCTOBER, 2018 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Overexposing Florence: Journeys through Photography, Cinema, Tourism, and Urban Space by DONATA PANIZZA Dissertation Director Rhiannon Noel Welch This dissertation examines the many ways in which urban form and visual media interact in 19th-, 20th-, and 21st-centuries Florence. More in detail, this work analyzes photographs of Florence’s medieval and Renaissance heritage by the Alinari Brothers atelier (1852- 1890), and then retraces these photographs’ relationship to contemporary visual culture – namely through representations of Florence in international cinema, art photography, and the guidebook – as well as to the city’s actual structure. Unlike previous scholarship, my research places the Alinari Brothers’ photographs in the context of the enigmatic processes of urban modernization that took place in Florence throughout the 19th century, changing its medieval structure into that of a modern city and the capital of newly unified Italy from 1865 to 1871. The Alinari photographs’ tension between the establishment of the myth of Florence as the cradle of the Renaissance and an uneasy attitude towards modernization, both cherished and feared, produced a multi-layered city portrait, which raises questions about crucial issues such as urban heritage preservation, mass tourism, (de)industrialization, social segregation, and real estate speculation. These questions ii remain unresolved in contemporary Florence, and my dissertation explores them by following the influence of the Alinari’s photographic gaze on contemporary representations of Florence in international cinema (Brian De Palma, Dario Argento, James Ivory, Ridley Scott), art and tourism photography (Gianni Berengo Gardin, Luigi Ghirri, Olivo Barbieri, Martin Parr, guidebooks by Italian Touring Club, Fodor and Frommer), and their relationship to contemporary urban development. Ultimately, my work aims to redefine the relevance of early photography as a unique tool for understanding contemporary urban space and its representation, thanks to its capacity to expose the contradictions of the present and look into the city’s future. iii Table of Contents Abstract ii Table of Contents iv List of Illustrations v Introduction 1 Chapter One “Photographs of a Death Foretold” 27 Chapter Two “A Pose is Still a Pose” 84 Chapter Three “Group Portrait with Gaze” 153 Chapter Four “Florence Reloaded” 232 Bibliography 287 iv List of Illustrations Chapter One Fig.1. Poggi Plan for Florence 49 Fig. 2. Alinari Brothers. The Cathedral’s Lateral View, 1855 60 Fig. 3. Alinari Brothers. Giotto’s Bell Tower, 1855 60 Fig. 4. Alinari Brothers. The Church of San Miniato al Monte, 1855 65 Fig. 5. Alinari Brothers. Palazzo Vecchio from the Uffizi Gallery, 1855 65 Fig. 6. Alinari Brothers. Santa Trinita and Carraia Bridges, 1855 68 Fig. 7. Alinari Brothers. View of the Ponte Vecchio (Old Bridge), 1855 68 Fig. 8. Alinari Brothers. The Palazzo Vecchio (Old Palace), 1855 72 Fig. 9. Alinari Brothers. Piazza della Fonte, 1885 ca. 78 Fig. 10. Alinari Brothers. The “Cortaccia”, 1885 ca. 78 Fig. 11. Alinari Brothers. The Old Market Square with the Loggia del Pesce and the Column of Abundance, 1880s 80 Fig. 12. Alinari Brothers. The Old Market Square, 1880s 82 Fig. 13. Alinari Brothers. The Piazza della Repubblica, 1890 82 Chapter Two Figg. 1-4. Paisan. The views in the Florentine episode 95 Figg. 5-6. The Stendhal Syndrome. The view from the Uffizi Gallery 102 Fig. 7. The Stendhal Syndrome. Anna and the Dukes of Urbino 102 Fig. 8. The Stendhal Syndrome. The view from Anna’s hotel room 107 Fig. 9. The Stendhal Syndrome. Anna’s new look 107 Fig. 10. Hannibal. Surveillance camera video in Florence 115 Fig. 11. Hannibal. The view 115 Fig. 12. Hannibal. Inspector Pazzi in the Piazza della Signoria 118 Fig. 13. Hannibal. Manhunt under the portici 118 Fig. 14. Hannibal. Lecter mails the letter 124 Fig. 15. Hannibal. The two statues 124 Fig. 16. Hannibal. Inspector Pazzi hanged from the Palazzo Vecchio 124 Fig. 17. A Room with a View. Lucy enjoys the view from the pensione 130 Fig. 18. A Room with a View. Lucy in Piazza della Signoria 130 Figg. 19-21. A Room with a View. Giambologna’s Perseus 134 Fig. 22. A Room with a View. The conversation of Lucy and George 137 Fig. 23. A Room with a View. Lucy and George back in Florence 137 Fig. 24. Obsession. The church of San Miniato in the opening credits 143 Fig. 25. Obsession. The building of the grave 143 Fig. 26. Obsession. The memorial garden 143 Figg. 27-28. Obsession. The camera leaves the view to follow the characters 149 Fig. 29. Obsession. The view outside the window 149 Fig. 30. Obsession. Sandra through the camera lens 152 Fig. 31. Obsession. The view behind Courtland 152 v Chapter Three Fig. 1. Luigi Ghirri. Modena. 1978 160 Fig. 2. Gianni Berengo Gardin. Firenze, 1967 176 Fig. 3. Gianni Berengo Gardin. Firenze, 1967 176 Fig. 4. Gianni Berengo Gardin. Firenze, 1967 178 Fig. 5. Gianni Berengo Gardin. Firenze, 1967 178 Fig. 6. Gianni Berengo Gardin. Firenze, 1967 179 Fig. 7. Gianni Berengo Gardin. Firenze, 1967 179 Fig. 8. Luigi Ghirri. Rimini, 1977 186 Fig. 9. Luigi Ghirri. Firenze, Stazione Ferroviaria di Santa Maria Novella di Giovanni Michelucci, 1985 189 Fig. 10. Olivo Barbieri. site specific FIRENZE_09, 2009 198 Fig. 11. Alinari Brothers. Santa Maria Novella, 1855 198 Fig. 12. Olivo Barbieri. site specific_FIRENZE 09, 2009 199 Fig. 13. Olivo Barbieri. site specific_FIRENZE 09, 2009 201 Fig. 14. Olivo Barbieri. site specific_FIRENZE 09, 2009 204 Fig. 15. Martin Parr. Piazza Signoria, Florence, Italy, 1995 210 Fig. 16. Martin Parr. Florence, Italy, 1995 210 Fig. 17. Martin Parr. Colosseum, Rome, Italy, 1995 212 Fig. 18. Tutto Firenze. The opening page of the photographic section 220 Fig. 19. Tutto Firenze, 1985. An image from Piazza della Signoria section 223 Fig. 20. Tutto Firenze, 1985. One page from Piazza della Signoria section 223 Fig. 21. Tutto Firenze, 1985. One page from Firenze dall’Alto section 225 Fig. 22. Fodor’s Florence: the Uffizi Gallery and Palazzo Vecchio, 2007 228 Fig. 23. Frommer’s Florence: the Uffizi Gallery and Palazzo Vecchio, 2006 229 Chapter Four Fig 1. Florence main train station 247 Fig. 2. Santa Trinita Bridge 250 Fig. 3. The new buildings by Ponte Vecchio 250 Fig. 4. Novoli: the ex-Fiat power plant and the new mall 255 Fig. 5. Aerial view of the ex-Fiat area 255 Fig. 6. The university buildings with the altane 257 Fig. 7. The train station atrium with the sequence of photographs 261 Fig. 8. The new bridge built from the T1 line 265 Fig. 9. The Palace of Justice from San Donato Park 268 Fig. 10. The Palace of Justice from Viale Guidoni 268 Fig. 11. Le Murate Square, Le Murate complex 278 Fig. 12. Madonna della Neve Square, Le Murate complex 278 Fig. 13. Corridor with old cells’ wooden doors, Le Murate complex 282 Fig. 14. The ‘panopticon’, Le Murate complex 282 vi 1 Introduction The circumstances of the emergence of photographic discourses and practices in Italy have been frequently conceptualized through the country’s – or, before its unification in 1860, its predecessors’ – conflictual and delayed relationship with modernity. In “Note per una Storia della Fotografia Italiana” (Notes for a History of Italian Photography, 1981), one of the first attempts to historicize Italian photography, art historian Marina Miraglia connects the scarcity of documents as well as the absence of theoretical reflection on the new medium throughout the first years of photography to Italian bourgeoisie’s lack of political power before 1860, which Miraglia sees more as an opposition intellectual elite than a ruling class. Following Giselle Freund’s theory, Miraglia considers 19th-century photography as the tool for aesthetic expression of the rising bourgeoisie, whose late appearance on the Italian political stage also delayed the country’s economic, commercial, and industrial-capitalist development, in turn a prerequisite for the development of photographic technologies. The year before the publication of Miraglia’s “Note”, another seminal essay on Italian photography appeared in one of the volumes of Storia d’Italia, Annali, by cultural critic Giulio Bollati. In “Note su Fotografia e Storia” (Notes on Photography and History, 1980), Bollati complicates Miraglia’s take and goes as far as to question the possibility of defining a photographic “modo di vedere italiano” (Italian gaze), precisely because of Italian specific involvement with modernity. Bollati argues that “il ritardo con cui siamo entrati a fare parte del mondo industriale avanzato ha prodotto … la persistenza di una tradizione culturale di antica ascendenza classica, la più antica e la più classica tra quante ne annovera il gruppo delle nazioni industrializzate” (the delay with which we became 2 part of the advanced industrial world resulted in the persistence of a classical cultural tradition, the most ancient and classical one among the industrialized countries, 129). In other words, Bollati relates Italy’s “unusual reaction” to photography not only to political, economic, and cultural backwardness, but also to the presence of a lumbering cultural tradition – in particular visual – which couldn’t but affect the production and conceptualization of photography in Italy. What in Miraglia’s account was merely a void of resources, turns here into the uneasy coexistence between that same void and a pre- existing surplus of images and meanings, which deeply influenced the development of photography in Italy.