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Giorgio
Sommer (1834-1914) was an early pioneer of photography
in Naples. He was born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
After beginning his career in Switzerland, he moved to
Naples in 1857and opened a photographic studio. His
first major works were from the battlefields of the
wars of Italian unification, particularly the siege of Gaeta in early
1861, when the last Bourbon forces fell to the army of
the new nation of Italy. He also documented for the
new government the subsequent suppression of residual
banditry in
the south (“bandits” usually meaning Bourbon holdouts
who refused to lay down their arms). Sommer’s main activity, however, was the kind of photography more attractive to tourists: landscapes and photographs of Greek and Roman ruins as well as photographic reproductions of paintings. He also manufactured reproductions of ancient vases and other artifacts. Sommer also photographed on Malta, in Sicily, Rome, Florence and Milan. He displayed internationally and received a number of awards. His photography of Naples between
1865 and 1900 is interesting; there is always Mt.
Vesuvius waiting to provide a spectacular shot every
few decades, but Sommer also provides views of the
city before the Risanamento,
the great wave of urban renewal that started in the
mid-1880’s.
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