Gezicht op de resten van het Foro Civile in Pompeï c. 1860 - 1880

This albumen print of the ruins of the Foro Civile in Pompeii was created by Giorgio Sommer, an Italian photographer of German origin, some time in the 19th century. Sommer specialized in archaeological tourism. His images of the ruins of Pompeii catered to a growing fascination with the ancient world, one that shaped institutional practices of art collecting and display. The ruins themselves create meaning by invoking classical architectural values. The composition directs our eye to the distant Mount Vesuvius, a powerful reminder of the volcano’s devastation. The presence of tourists in the photograph is not accidental. It suggests the power of commercialized tourism to commodify history. Sommer’s work comments on the social structures of his time and highlights the rise of mass tourism as a cultural phenomenon. Examining photographs such as these in the context of guidebooks, travelogues, and museum collections sheds light on the politics of imagery, revealing the ways in which cultural institutions have shaped our understanding of the past.