"Il viaggiatore": the photographer Luigi Fiorillo and Italian Orientalism

• Grant number: 25/12470-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Doctorate
• Start date: November 03, 2025
• End date: April 02, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Arts
• Principal Investigator: Letícia Coelho Squeff
• Grantee: Nina Ingrid Caputo Paschoal
• Supervisor: Tristan Weddigen
• Host Institution: Escola de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (EFLCH). Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP). Campus Guarulhos. Guarulhos , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Bibliotheca Hertziana, Italy
• Associated to the scholarship: 24/08445-6 - Brazilian Orientalism: photographs of arab types in the Thereza Christina collection, BP.DR

Abstract

As part of the PhD project "Brazilian Orientalism: photographs of Arab types in the Thereza Christina Collection" (FAPESP, n. 2024/08445-6), I intend to research the life and work of the Italian photographer Luigi Fiorillo (1847-1898), mainly by investigating his connection with the visual culture of Orientalism and the circulation of objects made by him, as photos and albums. This photographer, barely known in Brazil and in Europe, created portraits of Arab types to sell to tourists and voyagers from the 1870s onwards, as well as thematic albums of landscapes and daily scenes in Egypt and Palestine. That is the case of one album found at Thereza Christina collection in Brazil, probably bought by emperor Pedro II. Fiorillo was also an emissary for the Società Geografica Italiana, a scientific and journalistic organization that extensively documented the Italia colonization of Eritrea. As so, his production is directly related to the imperialist context that gave rise to Orientalism as a discourse, also supported by visual languages. Therefore, 5-month research at the Biblioteca Hertziana would be important to gather additional documents, bibliography, and iconography by Fiorillo and other photographers related to Italian Orientalism. (AU)