Gezicht op de Villa Madama te Rome c. 1868 - 1900

Romualdo Moscioni made this albumen print, "View of the Villa Madama in Rome," sometime between 1870 and 1920. The Villa Madama, an aristocratic estate designed in the early 16th century by Raphael, appears here as a symbol of Italian cultural heritage, but seen through the relatively new medium of photography. Moscioni lived in a time of great social upheaval. As Italy unified, photography played a crucial role in shaping national identity and memory, documenting landscapes and monuments that became emblems of a shared Italian past. But the photograph also invites us to consider those whose labor and lives are often unseen. The terraced fields in the foreground remind us of the agricultural workers who sustained the elite lifestyles associated with villas like the Madama. Moscioni’s photograph complicates a singular, celebratory narrative of Italian grandeur. By showing the villa in its environment, he hints at the complex relationship between aristocratic culture and the working class, between the aesthetic ideals of the Renaissance and the realities of labor.