The final phase of recovery for Francesco Jovane's photographic archive, curated by Mudif, is underway.

The photojournalist captured the characters and

the most important events of the 20th century

Sarno, January 9, 2025 – A portrait of Chilean President Salvador Allende, Vittorio De Sica and Sophia Loren on film sets, the 1956 uprising in Budapest, Spanish dictator Francisco Franco out hunting. These are just some of the photos that photojournalist Francesco Jovane took during his career, crystallizing iconic figures and key moments of the twentieth century in images.

Soon, the photographic collection dedicated to him will become part of the national cultural heritage. In fact, the final phase of restoration of the ’photographic archive of Francesco Jovane“ is beginning, curated by Mudif (Didactic Museum of Photography, based in Sarno). This step follows an initial phase of surveying the entire collection, with the review and cross-referencing of the original inventory list, and the cleaning and conservation of the phototypes. On June 12, 2023, the formal act was signed, through which the Superintendence for Archives and Libraries of Campania entrusted the Sarno museum with the restoration, conservation, and enhancement of Jovane's material.

The archive of the photographer, originally from Nocera Inferiore (Salerno), – acquired into the museum's heritage on July 4, 2009, and declared of particular historical interest in 2018 – constitutes the entire professional output of approximately fifty years of Jovane's work. Now comes the final phase of the project, with the digitization and cataloging of the collection, which includes 50,000 photographs, and the creation of 2,500 records that will be compiled on the Italian Central Institute for Cataloging (ICCD) SigecWeb platform of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage.

Almost all of Jován's photos will become public domain. Many iconic shots: from the Soviet invasion of Hungary to the Prague Spring, to the Algerian revolt, to the coup d'état in Congo, Chile, Bolivia, the tragedy of the Belgian Marcinelle mines to that of Vajont, from the Indochina and Vietnam wars, to the Gulf War; from the degradation of asylums to the hellish life of prisoners in Poggioreale; from the Camorra war, to the 1980 earthquake in Irpinia-Lucania; from Iran after the Revolution to the fall of the Berlin Wall, reports on Salvador Allende, Pablo Neruda, Umberto of Savoy, the Kennedy family, Nasser, Khrushchev, Kissinger, and social and film events such as those with Totò and Anna Magnani, Luis Buñuel, Burton and Taylor, Eduardo, Onassis and Callas, Vittorio De Sica and Sophia Loren.

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The restoration work on the archive also involved regional institutions of the Ministry of Culture (MiC), as reiterated by Vincenzo Petrosino, president of the Il Didrammo association, which encompasses the activities of the Mudif Museum.

«With the enhancement, cataloging, and digitization of Francesco Jovane's collection, an immense project that we have carried out over the past few years to protect the reporter's entire historical photographic archive is nearing completion,» emphasizes Petrosino. "This was not just our commitment, but was supported with funding from the Regional Archival Superintendent. We must thank the staff and in particular the superintendent Gabriele Capone, who believed in this work. Now, with the digitization and cataloging completed, we must start thinking about how to make the content of the historical photographic archive public, so that we can appreciate the photographic and documentary evidence that we have recovered and are making available for consultation.".

A complex process, that of restoration, carried out by the Mudif team of technicians, coordinated by scientific director Rosario Petrosino, who directs four catalogers assisted by officials from the Central Institute for Cataloging and Documentation in Rome.

«The work has been ongoing for years, due to the complexity of the recovery, securing the seabed, but above all, and this is the latest challenge, cataloging,» explains the museum director. "It's not simple to catalog material of this kind. One must consider that, beyond the elements produced by Jovane himself, there's the entire aspect related to his journalistic agency. This means that, along with the material from the great photographer, we are also working on other photographers who operated in his agency, Alfa Press. Therefore, our work involves researching the author, the event, and the timeframe. All the work that will take place in the coming months is precisely the research of news, subject matter, and placement. This will be done on a ministerial platform; we are already working on SigecWeb of the Central Institute for Cataloging and Documentation of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage, a cataloging process that will make the material part of Italy's cultural heritage.".

Press Office IL DIDRAMMO APS – MuDiF

Email: press@ildidrammo.it

Davide Speranza: cell. 339 726 3428

Alfonsina Caputano: cell. 349 571 0084

Headquarters IL DIDRAMMO APPS – MuDiF: via San Domenico, 1 – Sarno (Sa) / Telephone: 081 517 9573