PHOTOGRAPHS FROM THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE Bernardino Nogara and mines in the “Near East” (1900-1915)

The third volume of the Intesa Sanpaolo Group Historical Archives’ Photographic Notebooks series focuses on a remarkable, never-before-published photographic collection pertaining to the history of Banca Commerciale Italiana, the Italian bank that, together with a group of Venetian entrepreneurs led by Giuseppe Volpi, founded the Eastern Trading Company(Società Commerciale d’Oriente – COMOR) in 1907 in Geneva, Switzerland, with the aim of facilitating the financing of the construction of plants and infrastructure – railways, mines, power stations, shipping companies and more – in the area then known as the “Near East”.

COMOR moved its headquarters to Milan in 1912, but maintained several offices in the Mediterranean basin as well, including a branch in Istanbul (formerly Constantinople) that was directed by Bernardino Nogara, an engineer, Banca Commerciale Italiana’s trustee in the Mediterranean and Eastern Europe, and an important figure in twentieth-century history.

Consisting of some 2,100 items spanning the period from the 1870s to 1955, the Nogara Family Archive includes postcards and photographs taken by both professionals, such as Sebah & Joaillier, Abdullah Frères, Atelier Apollon, and amateurs and featuring many of the individuals and events that figured in Bernardino Nogara’s life.

Because of their historical significance and usefulness for various types of research, the Intesa Sanpaolo Historical Archives recently – after an extensive job of rearrangement, preservation, digitization and cataloguing – made them available for online consultation.