Umberto Pizzi, Italian photographer who witnessed 60 years of Italian history, dies at 89

Umberto Pizzi, one of Italy’s best-known photojournalists, has died at the age of 89. For more than half a century he documented with his camera the moments, figures and events that marked Italy’s contemporary history.

Born in Zagarolo, Rome, in 1937, Pizzi began photographing in 1968 and never parted with his camera, roaming the streets of Rome and beyond to fix in images the country’s public, political and social life.

Over his career he photographed the “Dolce Vita” years, well-known figures of cinema and culture, as well as famous love stories — including that of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.

Pizzi was also among the first photographers to arrive in Via Fani on March 16, 1978, the day of Aldo Moro’s kidnapping, documenting one of the most dramatic events in Italian political history.

His career was not limited to Italy. Pizzi also worked as a war photojournalist for the FAO, photographing in Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Syria and Jordan.

He leaves behind an extraordinary archive of more than 500,000 images and around two million photographs, an important part of his photographic legacy entrusted for safekeeping to Italy’s Ministry of Culture.

Pizzi never particularly liked the label “paparazzo.” For him, photography was above all a way to bear witness to reality. “Photographs, unlike words, tell the truth,” he had declared in a recent interview.

With Pizzi’s passing, Italy loses one of the photographers who, through his lens, documented not only famous figures but also the deep transformations of Italian society over more than six decades.