A new post on the Census research blog Verso discusses the growth of visual resources in the Census database in recent years.
Since 2021, the Census has dramatically expanded its visual resources by adding over 12,000 new photographs, many downloadable, to reflect the central role of high-quality digital imagery in studying the reception of antiquity. Drawing on open-access museum images, targeted digitisation projects (including key antiquarian manuscripts and collections), and a close collaboration with the archaeological database Ubi erat Lupa, the Census has undertaken extensive new photographic campaigns across major Italian museums and historic palaces. Photographic campaigns conducted by Census and Lupa in 2025 included a survey of all the antiquities remaining in the Palazzo Farnese, the Palazzo Giustiniani, and the Palazzo Barberini.
These initiatives not only document antiquities more fully—in situ and with attention to restoration, display, and material complexity—but also rethink the dominance of “normative” archaeological photography by adopting viewpoints aligned with Early Modern artists and antiquarians.
The integration of new high-resolution images from the 2024 edition of Taste and the Antique further strengthens the database, collectively enabling more nuanced analyses of collecting practices, artistic mediation, and the Early Modern reimagining of antiquity.
The post discussing the campaigns in more depth is available in English here and in German here.
Image: Muse sarcophagus in the Palazzo Giustiniani, photograph by Ortolf Harl.
