The Archive, due to the quality and quantity of the materials preserved, the specificity of the subjects, and the importance of the photographers represented, is among the greatest historical photographic collections in Italy.
It was established at the beginning of the last century and today its holdings amount to about 850,000 original photographs dating from 1840 to the present day.
The images, by important Italian and foreign photographers, offer us, through the most diverse and rare printing and shooting techniques, views of social history and customs, portraits of famous personalities, natural landscapes, urban transformations, especially of Milan (rebuilding of the Sforza Castle), precious testimonies of the artistic heritage, series dedicated to travels to the East in the nineteenth century (Ottoman Empire, India, China, Japan), historical events and reportage (Roman Republic of 1849, Crimean War of 1855, Milanese riots of 1898).
Among the funds of greatest historical importance are the Luca Beltrami Collection, the Iconographic Collection, the Lamberto Vitali fund. The Archive is currently involved in projects for conservation, restoration, scientific cataloging, and digital acquisition of images to allow better use of the heritage also through computer consultation.
The photographic collections are entirely and daily accessible to the public in the Consultation Room which periodically hosts conferences and exhibitions on the history of photography. The Archive preserves and catalogs a collection of publications and specialized periodicals, whose catalog is currently available for consultation within the OPAC of the Lombardy Regional Hub of the SBN network (National Library Service).
The book collection, in addition to specialized and often hard-to-find texts on the history and technique of photography, contains a rare collection of sales catalogs from nineteenth-century photographic studios (particularly Alinari, Brogi, Anderson).
