OPEN ARCHIVES WEEK – 11th edition

From October 18 to 26, 2025, the Antico Ospedale Santa Maria della Scala Foundation takes part in the eleventh edition of the Open Archives Week,the event promoted by Rete Fotografia to enhance and raise awareness of the photographic heritage preserved in Italian archives. Every year, the initiative involves cultural bodies and institutions throughout the country, offering the public unique opportunities to access often inaccessible materials and to reflect on the documentary and historical value of photography.The theme chosen for this year is

Resistant Photography: the role of images in historical narration, with a particular focus on the Second World War and photography’s ability to tell, preserve, and pass on historical memory.During the week, inside the Giuliano Briganti Library and Photo Library, it will be possible to participate in activities for children, meetings, and free guided tours during which visitors can closely explore historical photographs of artworks that disappeared, were destroyed, or stolen during the war.

Scheduled Events

📍 Saturday, October 18, 2025 – 4:30 PM
Giuliano Briganti Library and Photo Library and Children’s Art Museum
Discovering memory with colors – Visit and workshop for children
An activity designed for children aged 4 and up, accompanied by at least one adult, to discover the hidden stories in photographic archives: films, negatives, and stereoscopies tell the fate of lost or found artworks. At the end of the visit, there will be a creative workshop to reinterpret the observed images through color.
🎨 Duration: 1h 30min (visit + workshop)
💶 Cost: €5.00 per participant (second accompanying adult free)
👉 Reservation required – max 25 participants
📩 educazione@santamariadellascala.com📍 Tuesday, October 21, 2025 – 5:30 PM
Giuliano Briganti Library and Photo Library

Photographs of lost artworks: the case of the Marrini Crucifix for the Basilica of the Osservanza
Art historian Marco Fagiani presents the discovery of some historical photographs documenting a nineteenth-century crucifix destroyed during the bombing of the Basilica of the Osservanza in Siena in January 1944. The images, preserved in the Péleo Bacci archive housed at the Intronati Library, enabled the visual memory of the work to be recovered, now attributed to the workshop of the Sienese sculptor Lorenzo di Mariano, known as il Marrina.
👉 Reservation recommended – max 30 participants
📩 fototeca.briganti@santamariadellascala.com📍 Thursday, October 23, 2025 – 5:30 PM
Giuliano Briganti Library and Photo Library

Photographs of lost artworks: photographic testimony in the heritage of the Giuliano Briganti Photo Library
A thematic guided visit by art historian Lucia Simona Pacchierotti, exploring archival images documenting artworks now disappeared, such as Caravaggio’s Saint Matthew and Angel or Sassetta’s Assumption. The meeting also includes a selection of late nineteenth-century glass stereoscopic analogue prints, made in cooperation with the Sienese association LUX – Dopolavoro Fotografico, which show historical buildings no longer existing today.
👉 Reservation recommended – max 25 participants
📩 fototeca.briganti@santamariadellascala.com