History perceived through photographs, even by those who didn’t experience it. Images that become text, an interpretative language of events, faces, landscapes, and society.
The photographic archive of the Franchina-Letizia Ethnophotographic Museum, the fruit of the passion for photography of Monsignor Calogero Franchina and his niece Marietta Letizia.
It is the most impressive ethno-photographic museum in Sicily, with 40,000 glass plate negatives, 2,000 films, and 2,000 vintage prints.
The archive documents the evolution of customs, society, and the territory in the vast geographical area of the Nebrodi (Sicilian area) from the late 19th century to around 1980.
Photography, one of the most important tools for telling history.
Photographs and portraits of men and women, mostly from the upper middle class, since the common people did not have access to photography.
We move from the refinement of various female subjects, to the almost snapshot-like feel of group portraits of peasant families, which in a single shot manage to tell us about a specific life condition, to the heroic composition of group portraits in workplaces, to the subtle irony of other male portraits, to the creation of iconic images.
Of great interest are the photographs documenting historical events and local demonstrations and the vintage cameras.
Free Entry
Ethno-Photographic Museum
at Town Hall
Via Vittorio Emanuele
Tortorici (Messina)
Sicily – Italy
Website info (Municipality of Tortorici)
What see province nearby Curiosities Special Experiences Museums Unusual Themes