St Peter's Square seen from above, packed with crowds on Easter Day
Carlo Riccardi Easter 1957
St Peter's Square completely deserted at night, lit only by torches set out on the paving
Maurizio Riccardi Via Crucis 2021

Two hands, one archive.

The same square, sixty-four years apart

The collection
Archive
AGR AgencyRiccardi Group
Period
Since 1945historic photographic archive
Recognition
Heritage of national interestArchival Superintendency of Lazio
Holdings
More than 3,000,000original negatives

Three million negatives: eighty years of Italian life, kept in the heart of Rome.

The photographic archive of the AGR Agency – Riccardi Group is registered with the Archival Superintendency of Lazio as heritage of national interest. More than three million original negatives record the political, social and everyday life of the last eighty years of Italian history.

It was built, frame after frame, by Carlo Riccardi, the paparazzo par excellence; today it is kept by his son Maurizio, at the historic AGR agency in the heart of Rome. Not only the stars of the post-war years — Fellini, Mastroianni, De Sica, Sordi, Loren — and the politicians who wrote the history, but ordinary people too: the real protagonists of everyday life.

Eighty years, a single line.

On 4 June 1944 General Mark W. Clark's Fifth Army entered Rome at dawn. The next day a boy sleeping in the public dormitory was taken on to make photographs for the Americans; on 27 June they issued him a pass. The line begins there. Halfway along, the camera passes from one hand to the other.

  1. 27 June 1944
    “Common Laborer”, the first passCarlo Riccardi
  2. 1944
    The photographer's passCarlo Riccardi
  3. 1944
    The jeep in front of St Peter'sCarlo Riccardi
  4. 1944
    The U.S. Army Rest CenterCarlo Riccardi
  5. 1945
    “It's all over over here”Carlo Riccardi
  6. 1945
    The boy who photographed the soldiersCarlo Riccardi
  7. 1950sdecade
    A couple in front of the Colosseum, at nightCarlo Riccardi
  8. 1950sdecade
    Two children at the drinking fountainCarlo Riccardi
  9. 1952
    The smallest altar boyCarlo Riccardi
  10. 1956
    Taxis under the canopy at TerminiCarlo Riccardi
  11. 1957
    St Peter's Square from above, on Easter DayCarlo Riccardi
  12. 1958
    A helicopter in front of St Peter'sCarlo Riccardi
  13. 1960sdecade
    A boy at the petrol pumpCarlo Riccardi
  14. 1960sdecade
    Diving into the Fountain of the Four RiversCarlo Riccardi
  15. 1965
    Snow over St Peter's SquareCarlo Riccardi
  16. 1965
    The photographers at the windowCarlo Riccardi
  17. 1960sdecade
    The Colosseum after the downpourCarlo Riccardi

  18. Here the camera passes from one hand to the other: from Carlo to his son Maurizio, who photographs the same city.

  19. 2021
    The empty square, on the night of the Via CrucisMaurizio Riccardi
  20. 2021
    The Pope alone, at the Via CrucisMaurizio Riccardi
  21. contemporary
    The dome, from Bernini's colonnadeMaurizio Riccardi
  22. contemporary
    Flocks over the dome, at sunsetMaurizio Riccardi
A line of taxis waiting under the great canopy of Termini station