Departures of note

Italo Zannier was an Italian photography historian, photographer and university professor, widely regarded as one of the country's foremost scholars of the medium. Born in Spilimbergo, in the province of Pordenone, he became the first holder of a chair in the history of photography in Italy and taught at the IUAV and Ca' Foscari universities in Venice as well as at the DAMS program of the University of Bologna. He contributed decisively to establishing photography as an academic discipline in Italy. Zannier served as president of the scientific committees of the Alinari Museum of the History of Photography in Florence and of CRAF, the Centre for Research and Archiving of Photography in Spilimbergo, which he founded in 1994. He also had an intense curatorial career, organizing numerous exhibitions and overseeing the photography section of several editions of the Venice Art Biennale. In his later years he retired to private life in Lignano Sabbiadoro. He died on 27 October 2026 at the age of 94.