This "Atlas" devoted to sculptural and architectural works by Tullio Lombardo and his family workshop is an online resource providing as many photographs as possible of the same statue, bas-relief, ornamental item, palazzo or religious space. The photographs are accompanied by a concise information sheet containing key physical data, location and main historical references.
The main feature of the Atlas is that it has several images of the same subject. They range from paintings, drawings, engravings and casts from before the advent of photography up to digital photographs taken on specially conducted surveys. These were carried out not only to partly obviate the inevitable relativism and subjectivism characterising almost all two-dimensional reproductions of three-dimensional plastic works and especially of architectural spaces. They were also a way of ordering the survey material into a historical sequence that narrates the history of the use of the object, its iconographic tradition and, equally importantly, that of its state of conservation, at least over the 150 years since the invention and circulation of the camera. In short, the underlying conviction is that only through a wide selection of photographs can the original uniqueness of the subject be evoked.
In addition to the images already held in the Fondazione Giorgio Cini photographic archives (the original core of this catalogue), the Atlas brings together photos from various local, national and international archives, including those of the Soprintendenze, the Venice Civic Museum and universities. The archives that have until now supported the work are the Böhm Archive, Save Venice and the Venetian Soprintendenze. A copy of the photographic archive of Anne Markham Schulz and Mario Polesel (Fotoflash) has also been acquired.
Lastly, a photographic campaign on the works of Tullio Lombardo was conducted by the students in an ESF course taught by Alessandra Chemollo at the IUAV in the 2006-2007 academic year.
It is the hope of the Fondazione Cini, patron and host of the Lombardo Committee, that making available the huge quantity of information in this photographic archive will encourage a return to studies and mark further interest in the work of the great Venetian sculptors.