Sguardi sul bosco. La collezione di Selvicoltura della Biblioteca di Scienze Tecnologiche Sede di Agraria nella Biblioteca Digitale del Museo Galileo

The Technology Library - Agriculture Branch of the University of Florence holds a photographic collection from the former University’s Institute of Silviculture. This material, selected in the 1980s by Professors Pietro Piussi and Alessandra Zanzi Sulli, is divided into three sub-collections accompanied by inventories. The first is called “Royal Forestry Corps” and includes 529 photographs documenting the work of the Royal Forestry Corps, established by the Luzzatti Law of 1910. The pictures illustrate reforestation work, hydraulic forestry works and activities in the nurseries of state forests. The Corps was in fact responsible for forest management and supplemented inspectors and forest rangers from previous administrations to safeguard the continuity of interventions on the land, as evidenced by the presence of pre-1910 photographs. The shots were often taken by the inspectors, who therefore also possessed technical skills in the use of photography, as suggested by the presence of a nucleus of texts on photographic technique in the “Vallombrosa Fonds,” the book collection that reconstructs the library of the Vallombrosa Higher Forestry Institute deputed to the training of future inspectors. The photographs served as attachments to reports and projects, but they were also often used to promote the Corps' activities and forest protection issues through display in international exhibitions or inclusion in popular science works. The Institute of Silviculture may have received them through its faculty members, many of whom were also forestry inspectors. Today, this collection represents a valuable testimony to the history of Italian silviculture and continues to live on through the digital transposition curated by the Galileo Museum. The Museum and the Library have collaborated to create a thematic digital library that includes not only the photographs of the Royal Forestry Corps but also other collections from the Institute of Silviculture, the texts on photographic techniques from the “Vallombrosa Fonds”, and other significant texts of the Forestry Institute.