Trasmigrazione mediale. Dall’illustrazione alla fotografia nelle autobiografie di montagna

The essay examines a large corpus of European mountaineering autobiographies written between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, focusing on the delicate transition from illustration to photography. Since its origins, the récit d’ascension has relied on a dual track of narration and visual representation, initially through drawings and engravings and later through photographic images. As photographic reproductions grew in number and technical quality, however, a progressive emptying of meaning in the images themselves becomes apparent. This essay aims to investigate precisely this communicative gap between the two forms of visual representation and to explore how it reshapes the interplay between text and image within the mountain autobiography.