The year 1839 marks the birth of photography and the beginning of the intimate and complex relationship between this new “instrument” and scientific practice, which had originated the new technology in the first place. The invention expanded the horizons of knowledge, revealed in images which seemed to provide a firm objective basis for scientific verification.
Two new exhibitions offer a detailed journey through the first century of photography as a tool of science with special focus on Italy: The Eye of Science: A Century of Scientific Photography in Italy (1839-1939) and The Eye of Science: Giorgio Roster and Odoardo Beccari, Explorers of Place and Image. The first opens in Pisa at the Museo della Grafica; the second in Florence at the Stibbert Museum, both from November 11, 2022 to February 26, 2023.