[Spanish Steps, Rome]

Pietro Dovizielli

ca. 1855 · Albumen silver print from glass negative · Photographs

Made in late afternoon light, Pietro Dovizielli’s picture shows a long shadow cast onto Rome’s Piazza di Spagna that almost obscures one of the market stalls flanking the base of the famed Spanish Steps. Rising above the sea of stairs is the church of Trinità dei Monti, its facade neatly bisected by the Sallustiano obelisk. In the piazza, a lone figure—the only visible inhabitant of this eerily empty public square—rests against the railing of the Barcaccia fountain. Keenly composed pictures like this led reviewers of Dovizielli’s photographs to proclaim them "the very paragons of architectural photography."

Artist

Pietro Dovizielli

Date

ca. 1855

Medium

Albumen silver print from glass negative

Department

Photographs

Credit line

Gift of W. Bruce and Delaney H. Lundberg, in celebration of the Museum’s 150th Anniversary, 2019