Italy's first female freelance photographer dies at 103

(ANSA) - ROME, JAN 11 - Italy's first female freelance photographer Marcella Pedone died at 103 on Wednesday, her family said.
    Born in Rome in 1919, she turned 103 last April 27.
    After graduating in languages at Venice, Pedone started her career in Germany as a reporter and then working for photography equipment producers and holding talks on Italy in German popular universities where she exhibited her photos of an unknown and rapidly changing Italy.
    Thanks to the success of these lectures, she was hired by the Bavaria photo agency.
    She collaborated with the Ferrania camera company which hired her to promote colour film, photos and short feature films, which she tried her hand at personally, shooting documentaries.
    She toured Italy for years in a caravan, spanning mountains, fishing villages, mines, factories, and building sites where her photos documented the transformation of Italy from an agricultural to an industrial economy.
    Her work continued after Ferrania went bust when she carved out a place in the sector of educational and popularising publishing, building up a formidable image bank from which she could pick the best subjects for various publishing products for houses like Aristea, Loescher, and De Agostini.
    In 2017 she donated her trove of 170,000 photos taken over more than 50 years of activity to the Milan Museum of Science and Technology, together with the cameras she had used.
    This precious collection has become an object of study by many university students.
    In 2021 she was the subject of the first monographic show dedicated to the real and legendary world of the Dolomites.
    "Marcella Pedone anticipated by decades, with her personal and professional life, principles which have been consolidated in our society and which constitute a fertile vision for the future," said the museum's director general, Fiorenzo Galli.
    "Freedom, autonomy, competence and passion are all values that emerge from her final temporary show Transfigured Dolomites, held in the Museum: an extraordinary cultural gift". (ANSA).