Porta Della Chiesa Di S. Maria Del Carmine 1897

Giuseppe Barberis created this engraving of the door of the Church of Santa Maria del Carmine sometime in the late 19th or early 20th century. Consider the moment in which Barberis was working. Italy had only recently unified, and there was a desire to codify and preserve a shared Italian cultural heritage. It's compelling to think about the act of documentation itself as a way of solidifying a particular narrative. Who gets to decide what's worth remembering, and how does that choice reflect broader power dynamics? Churches, often at the heart of communities, carry layers of history, belief, and artistic expression. Barberis’s engraving invites us to reflect on the church’s role as a cultural, social, and spiritual touchstone in Italian society. How do such images shape our understanding of history and collective identity, and whose stories are centered in these visual records?