1960 – The Monumento a Vittorio Emanuele II in Rome, Italy, seen from Piazza Venezia. © Mark Zanzig/zanzig.com
The story behind the image
The Monumento a Vittorio Emanuele II (also known as Vittoriano) is a symbol for the Italian unification. Being the geographical center of Rome, the Piazza Venezia has always been one of the busiest places in the city. Petra and I were there in June 2005, and I took this photo.
Imagine my joy when I discovered a very similar shot in the slide set covering a trip to Rome in 1960 that I acquired a couple of weeks ago. The photographer was a young man of 19 years (born 1941), full of passion for photography and gifted with a talent to spot exciting images.
For this photo he assumed a location very similar to my position in 2005. Three things hit the eye immediately:
- In the 1960s it seems to have been slower. There are just very few cars in the picture.
- There was a parking lot in the middle of the Piazza. By 2005 it had been replaced by a small green.
- All the cars were made in Italy. From left to right we see a Fiat 1100 (Type 103), a Fiat 1100 (facelift variant), a Fiat 500, a nice Alfa Romeo Giulietta Sprint, which had been one of the smash hits of the car maker in the 1950s and 1960s. And yet another Fiat 500. These cars express the stong economy and Italian pride after the second world war.
Admittedly, the monument is not really a ‘beauty’ by any means, but I was fascinated once I saw it, just as the photographer of this image. It dominates the Piazza Venezia and still causes a lot of discussions among the people of Rome, the tourists and the archeological researchers who know that it has been built upon unbelievable (archeological) treasures.
The high resolution image
| Capture Date | c. 1960 |
| Location | Rome, Italy |
| Photographer | anonymous |
| Image Source | 35 mm color slide, Agfacolor CT 18 |
| Digital Image Source | EPSON Perfection 4870 Photo |
| Digital Image Source Format | TIFF, 48 bits/pixel, sRGB |
| Edited Image Format | JPEG, 24 bits/pixel, sRGB |
| Edited Image Dimensions | 6675 x 4305 Pixels |
| Copyright | Scan & Edit © by Mark Zanzig/zanzig.com |
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