The Nineteenth Century

Arbatax station. Photo by Vittorio Besso, 1888, from Sardegna DL

After a short period of intense experimentation, between 1860 and 1870, the first photographic laboratories were started in the main centers of the island, by Agostino Lay Rodriguez and Giuseppe Luigi Cocco in Cagliari, and by the Frenchman Jean Mailland in Sassari. The predominant activity of the first Sardinian photographers consisted of studio portraiture.
The predominant activity of the first Sardinian photographers consisted of studio portraiture. Lay Rodriguez alone carried out some work in the Iglesias mining area and was the first to create a large catalog of traditional Sardinian clothes in the interior countries.
At the end of the 1870s, Vittorio Besso, from Biella, one of the most established Italian professionals, arrived on the island, recalled by two important commissions: the official documentation of the Iglesiente mining plants and the construction of the new network of the Sardinian Secondary Railways; his work will remain an unsurpassed model for decades for his island colleagues, especially in the field of industrial photography.
In the meantime, the photographic workshops spread widely in the main centers of the island: Mauri, Canzani, Nissim and Valentin in Cagliari; Lori, Canu Fadda and Mannu in Sassari; Parnicich in Oristano and Pizzetti in Iglesias.
Although portraiture continued to be the most common type of image, some of them also occasionally dedicated themselves to industrial photography.
Mauri and later Zonini from Sassari completed the cataloguing of Sardinian clothes, which they used for some important editions of illustrated postcards.
In Nuoro, after the pioneer Camedda, at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the painters Ballero, Satta, Biasi, Delitala and Palazzi used the photographic medium more consciously than photography professionals, creating a precious documentation of the last moments of a Barbagia still unaffected by modernization processes.

Update

27/1/2026 - 16:16