Tommaso Breccia Fratadocchi.
Colours of a Study Trip 1966/1968

Starting 16 March 2026, the Photothek of the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut presents a new online exhibition. A selection from around 900 color slides taken by the Roman architect Tommaso Breccia Fratadocchi (1936–2021) during his study travels between 1966 and 1968 through the historical cultural landscape of Armenia will be presented as an exemplary case. Many of the documented sacred buildings are today part of the UNESCO World Heritage. The photographs reveal not only the uniqueness of architecture and landscape—in a region that today partly belongs to Turkey and Iran—but also the particular gaze of an architect toward buildings, nature, and people. While Breccia Fratadocchi’s black-and-white photographs were published early on and deposited in institutions in Lisbon and Rome, the color slides have remained unpublished until now. In 2024 they were donated to the Institute by Benedetta Papàsogli Breccia.

In 1966, Tommaso Breccia Fratadocchi and Paolo Cuneo, together with colleagues, traveled to Yerevan to conduct field research on Armenian architecture. Organizing a stay in the then Soviet Union was complex and possible only thanks to personal contacts and considerable commitment. During the journey, Breccia Fratadocchi systematically documented landscape, architecture, and people, using two Hasselblad cameras for black-and-white photographs and color slides. His images testify to a highly trained architectural eye. He often sought elevated vantage points, climbing onto roofs or collapsed domes in order to make ground plans and spatial structures visible. Indoors, he frequently directed the camera upward to capture the incoming light. Sunbeams enter into dialogue with columns, arches, and domes, opening new perceptions of space. Against the backdrop of a landscape shaped by tuff stone, human figures in brightly colored clothing appear as deliberate chromatic accents. At the same time, they function as scale: Armenian churches are not monumental, yet in the vastness of the plateau they appear larger. By including people, this illusion is subtly broken without being entirely dissolved. In the photographs, nature and architecture enter into a close formal relationship: the drums of domes echo mountain silhouettes, while architectural decorations correspond to vegetal forms. At times, architecture is so strongly absorbed by nature that the motif becomes difficult to identify—an intentionally disorienting effect. Because figurative representations are rare in Armenian churches, textiles assume particular significance. With crosses and floral patterns they enliven the dark interiors. Breccia Fratadocchi directs his gaze toward these colored elements, which simultaneously document liturgical practice and popular votive traditions.

The exhibition also addresses the handling of historical photographic material, whose colors have visibly aged through exposure to light, heat, and humidity. The slides have been subjected to conservative restoration, digitized, and catalogued. Today they are stored under cooled conditions, and the digital reproductions are freely accessible through the Digital Photothek. Despite color shifts, stains, and other material transformations, digital restoration was deliberately avoided in order to make visible the aging processes inherent to the materiality of analogue photographs.

Concept and texts: Beatrice Spampinato, Ute Dercks

> Go to the online exhibition