Launch night Join us on Friday 11th September at 5:30 pm for the launch night. Free entry: email rsvp.iicedimburgo@esteri.it to reserve your space. 14 September to 1 October 2026: Opening times: Mondays to Thursdays 9.30-13.30 / 14.30 -16.00 Fridays: 9.30-13.00 Free entry (BY APPOINTMENT ONLY!! Booking required: please email rsvp.iicedimburgo@esteri.it or phone 0131 668 2232 & include the full names of all the guests in your party). The backstory is fascinating, in that the photographer and many of the individuals remain unknown, and the negatives themselves languished in a drawer for many years, only to be discovered by filmmaker Giordano Viozzi after the death of his aunt Fernanda Millevolte. Whilst exhibiting a degree of amateurism some are extraordinarily accomplished, emulating professional composition techniques and achieving deeply personal portraits of people for whom this may have been their first experience of a camera. Most uniquely, the individuals photographed are all contadini from southern Le Marche in central Italy, the illiterate and impoverished sharecroppers who more usually feature only as bucolic incidentals in a rural landscape. Now put front and centre they boldly face the viewer and present us with the reality of a way of life that has now passed into history. These photographs are also witness to a unique and extraordinary event in the latter part of the Second World War in which many such individuals played a historic but largely unknown role. By the time of the Italian Armistice in September 1943 there were 80,000 Allied Prisoners of War in camps throughout central and northern Italy. In the biggest prison breakout in history, 50,000 escaped at the Armistice and although many were quickly rounded up, 25,000 remained at large and found refuge with these same contadini who sheltered them from the NaziFascisti for up to 18 months. Despite running a real risk of death if their role was discovered, this lowliest section of Italian society took in the ragged and starving young men, treating them as members of their family and sharing what little they had. These photographs stand as a testament to the courage compassion and endurance of the most marginalised people in Italian society. Casa della Memoria Association was founded over 20 years ago in Servigliano, Le Marche, site of PoW camp PG59 which has now been designated an Italian National Monument. It hosts educational events from its on-site Museum and welcomes many people seeking information about family members imprisoned in the camp as well as enquiries from academic researchers Monte San Martino Trust was founded in 1989 by Keith Killby in gratitude for the courageous help he received after escaping from Camp PG59. The Trust grants educational bursaries in the UK to young Italians and funds research through its associations with Cambridge University and Istituto Parri. It is a major repository of the personal accounts of Allied escapers and their helpers and has promoted the publishing of a book based on those recollections “The Girl with a Peach: Courage and Compassion in Wartime Italy”, written by Ann Copley, available on Amazon.

Description supplied by the event organiser.