New photo resource provides interesting peek into Vatican's past

Published: 2008-01-11

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Scholars, history buffs and the public at large will now be able to peek inside some of the Vatican's historical black-and-white photograph collection. The written contents of the Vatican photo service's entire Giordani Collection have been transcribed into a searchable Microsoft Word file that can be sent, free of charge, to anyone on request by e-mailing photo@ossrom.va. Thanks to the new resource, some half-million images, mostly black and white and taken between 1933 and 1975, will be available more easily to the public for research and sale. Prospective buyers also can request the photos they would like to purchase by e-mailing photo@ossrom.va, specifying the photo caption and the corresponding number. This new electronic file is a modest but significant start to the Vatican photo service's long-term plans of updating and improving how it archives and preserves its collections. The collection takes its name from Francesco Giordani, the private Rome-based photographer the Vatican commissioned starting in the 1930s, long before the Vatican set up its own photography service in 1977.

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