Stefano Lecchi, The Third Breach at the Casino Barberini, 1849

Stefano Lecchi (1804-1859/63)
The Third Breach at the Casino Barberini, 1849
Salt paper from paper negative, 16,3 x 22,4 cm
München, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Neue Pinakothek, Inv. Nr. DS 1522

Stefano Lecchi (1804-1859/63) was originally from Milan and began his career as a painter before moving into photography. He initially used the daguerreotype process before adopting the calotype technique developed by William Henry Fox Talbot. In the 1840s, Lecchi spent time in Paris and southern France. During a visit to Naples in 1847, he met the British calotypist George Wilson Bridges (1788-1863), who commended his work. Lecchi was active in Rome from 1849 for several years and later continued his career in Malta.

In the summer of 1849, in Rome, Stefano Lecchi captured the photographs for which he is best known: views of the battlefields and the devastation following the siege of Rome by Franco-Spanish forces. This military defeat marked the end of the Roman Republic, which had been declared by supporters of Giuseppe Mazzini in February 1849. Pope Pius IX (1846-1878) returned to Rome in the spring of 1850 and resumed control of the Papal States.

A total of 44 of Stefano Lecchi's recordings from this series are known to date. The most extensive collections are held by the Biblioteca di Storia Moderna e Contemporanea in Rome and the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles. The Dietmar Siegert Collection contains nine photographs from this series, which are of significant importance as the earliest photographic depictions of battlefields and as visual testimonies to the Risorgimento. This photograph shows a breach in the Gianicolense wall on the right bank of the Tiber, where French troops achieved a decisive breakthrough after intense fighting.