Since 2022, the project to digitize the photographic fund of the Roberto Longhi Foundation for Art History Studies has been underway by Centrica’s Digital Imaging department.

The Foundation promotes the development of art history studies by keeping alive the cultural legacy and method of art historian Roberto Longhi through research grants and awards, courses and seminars ( https://www.fondazionelonghi.it/fondazione/chi-siamo/).

The Foundation’s photo collection, kept within the premises of Villa il Tasso, includes a large collection of reproductions of works of art, often accompanied by hand notes by Roberto Longhi, collectors and other art historians.

The photo library digitization project involves the acquisition of both the front and back of the approximately 70,000 objects in the library and the training of Foundation staff.

The acquisitions are carried out using dual-scanner or photo-shoot technology in order to obtain very high-resolution digital images for each type of object.
To date, the Centrica team has digitized more than 60 percent of the photo library’s total objects.

The collaboration between Centrica and the Foundation began in 2020 and involved digitization of part of the archive, implementation of preservation, backup, long-time preservation policies for digital derivatives, and development of the new website. In addition to the photo library materials, notebooks, handwritten and shorthand notebooks, university lecture notes and correspondence were digitized.