Photographs are objects that preserve the memory of a territory, freezing time in an image (a landscape, a scene, a face).
The MET’s heritage includes collections of images that make up various photographic archives, acquired over the years. These archives bring together and make available visual documents to the public: they tell the world and life frozen in eternal moments and testify to the history of the country through its places, faces, and attitudes.
This rich archive is the result of work dedicated to the preservation, study, and dissemination of materials collected by local photographic studios.
The archive includes the following collections:
– The Augusto de Girolami Collection (from the first half of the 20th century): includes portraits, fairs and festivals, trades, fieldwork, and factory work;
– The Paolo Monti Collection, with photographs of urban realities;
– The Umberto Macrelli Collection, with photographs documenting the urban transformations and social life of Santarcangelo in the 20th century;
– The Paul Scheuermeier Collection, with photographs of various Romagna locations taken between 1923 and 1931;
– The Municipal Archive, with color and black-and-white photographs of official visits, celebrations, performances, and technical drawings.

The Augusto de Girolami Collection belongs to a teacher from Santarcangelo who dedicated himself to the technique of photography from around 1920 until the 1980s. The collection consists of about 10,000 items (photos, plates, slides, films, proof or discarded prints). The subjects of his photographs are varied: portraits, fairs, festivals, everyday life, trades, fieldwork, and factory work, documenting the life of his city.

The Paolo Monti Collection belongs to one of the most respected and well-known Italian photographers of the 20th century. A native of Piedmont, Monti came to Santarcangelo between 1960 and 1970 to work on a new architectural project for the historic center. Monti’s collection includes 383 photographs depicting the architecture of streets, doors, facades, columns, porticos, and interiors. His work focused on the restoration of the old village of Santarcangelo, respecting its ancient and historical appearance.

The Umberto Macrelli Collection contains over 12,000 items, including prints and negatives, that document Santarcangelo and its urban transformations and social life over the years. Macrelli, a passionate photographer from 1964 until his death in 1989, was also a great collector of historical photos, which he reproduced and displayed in exhibitions alongside his own work. His photographs capture images of village life over the course of a century.

The Paul Scheuermeier Collection contains photographs of several Romagna locations. These were taken between 1923 and 1931 when Paul Scheuermeier was in Romagna for a linguistic and ethnographic research project commissioned by the University of Zurich.
The Santarcangelo Museum recovered 119 previously unpublished photographs from the Romanisches Seminar in Bern, documenting locations such as Saludecio, Fusignano, Sant’Agata Feltria, Cesenatico, Ravenna, Tavolato, and Meldola.
With the project “Paul Scheuermeier in Romagna”, the Museum began a process of organizing and analyzing Scheuermeier’s entire body of work. The photographic material, along with captions, has been digitized to create a database and preserve this valuable ethnographic and linguistic photographic and documentary heritage of the region.

The Municipal Archive consists of 4,000 color and black-and-white photographs taken and donated to various offices of the Municipal Administration since 1950. Over time, it has become a collection of photographic material covering various subjects: official visits, celebrations, performances, and technical drawings, constituting an important documentary heritage for the city.