Loggia dei Lanzi, Florence
Ferdinando Artaria et Fils Italian
Johann Jakob Falkeisen Swiss
Not on view
The Milanese publisher Ferdinando Artaria’s series of aquatints Vues d’Italie d’après le daguerrèotype (1840–47) represents one of the first attempts to reproduce the unique plates created by the daguerreotype process in a print publication. Each engraving was made by tracing a daguerreotype image and transferring it to a copper plate. A skilled artist then added clouds, staffage figures, and other transitory details that could not be captured by the camera. No daguerreotypes related to the series have been located; they were most likely destroyed or discarded after the tracing process. This hand-colored view of the Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence’s Piazza della Signoria offered tourists a more faithful souvenir than traditional prints, since it was made directly from a photograph, and thus, from reality.
