Hidden Cities: A Photobook

$9.26 U.S.

Italo Calvino’s beloved, intricately crafted

novel about an Emperor’s travels—a

brilliant journey across far-off places and

distant memory.

HIDDEN CITIES

Excerpts from Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities

A PHOTOBOOK

Writtern by ITALO CALVINO

Illustrated by PHO VU

“The question that Calvino seems to be

asking is a big one: How should we live?”

—ERIC WEINER

“Cities, like dreams, are made of desires

and fears, even if the thread of their

discourse is secret, their rules are absurd,

their perspectives deceitful, and everything

conceals something else.” In a garden

sit the aged Kublai Khan and the young

Marco Polo—Mongol emperor and

Venetian traveler. Kublai Khan has sensed

the end of his empire coming soon. Marco

Polo diverts his host with stories of the

cities he has seen in his travels around the

empire: cities and memory, cities and desire,

cities and designs, cities and the dead, cities

and the sky, trading cities, hidden cities. As

Marco Polo unspools his tales, the emperor

detects these fantastic places are more than

they appear.

Calvino’s elusiveness comes also from the

honesty with which he develops his series.

“Invisible Cities” is an elegy, autumnal

and melancholy. Cities do move more

and more toward failure, and toward the

end of the book Procopia, the last of the

“Continuous Cities,” is so crowded that the

people hide the place and even the sky. And

there is Penthesilea, less an “aggregation of

opaque polyhedrons on the horizon” than

a limbo of endless outskirts. But the reader

finds something more interesting here

than decline and fall. Even the cities that

exhibit delusion and degeneration remain

the possibilities from which, as Marco tells

the Khan, any crystal‐perfect community

whose molecula’r form the Khan dreams of

must in be calculated.

HIDDEN CITIES

INVISIBLE CITIES

TITLES BY ITALO CALVINO

The Baron in the Trees

The Castle of Crossed Destinies Cosmicomics

Difficult Loves

If on a winter’s night a traveler Invisible Cities

Italian Folktales

Marcovaldo, or The seasons in the city

Mr. Palomar

The Nonexistent Knight and The Cloven Viscount t zero

Under the Jaguar Sun

The Uses of Literature

The Watcher and Other Stories

HIDDEN

CITIES

INVISIBLE CITIES

Copyrigth © 1972 by Giuglio Einaudi Editore

English translation copyright © 1974 by Harcourt Brace & Company

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or

transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,

including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval

system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this

book, please write Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing

Company 215 Park Avenue South New York NY 10003.

Layout and typesetting: Pho Vu

Text: Italo Calvino

Photographs: Robert Capa, Berenice Abbott, Aaron Siskind, Paul Strand,

Brassaï, Jerry Uelsmann, Vivian Maier

Format: 180x240 mm

ISBN: 0156453800

Incheon, South Korea

May 2023

ITALO CALVINO

PHO VU

HARCOURT BRACE & COMPANY (1974)

CONTENTS

001

INTRODUCTION

006

HIDDEN CITIES

Le città invisibili.

Three

002

HIDDEN CITIES

007

BRASSAÏ

One

French, born Hungary, 1899–1984

003

ROBERT CAPA

008

HIDDEN CITIES

Hungarian, 1913-1954

Four

BERENICE ABBOT

American, 1898–1991

009

MARIO GIACONELLI

AARON SISKIND

Italian, 1925–2000


004

HIDDEN CITIES

010

HIDDEN CITIES

Two

Five

005

PAUL STRAND

011

JERRY UELSMANN



INTRODUCTION

Le città invisibili.

Kublai Khan does not

necessarily believe everything

Marco Polo says when he

describes the cities visited

on his expeditions, but the

emperor of the Tartars does

continue listening to the

young Venetian with greater

attention and curiosity than he

shows any other messenger

or explorer of his.

tributes of precious metals,

tanned hides, and tortoise shell.

It is the desperate moment

when we discover that this

empire, which had seemed

to us the sum of all wonders,

is an endless, formless ruin,

that corruption’s gangrene has

spread too far to be healed by

our scepter, that the triumph

over enemy sovereigns has

In the lives of emperors there

is a moment which follows

pride in the boundless

extension of the territories

we have conquered, and

the melancholy and relief

of knowing we shall soon

give up any thought of

knowing and understanding

them. There is a sense of

emptiness that comes over

us at evening, with the odor

of the elephants after the

rain and the sandalwood

ashes growing cold in the

braziers, a dizziness that

makes rivers and mountains

tremble on the fallow curves

of the planispheres where

they are portrayed, and rolls

up, one after the other, the

despatches announcing to

us the collapse of the last

he last enemy troops, from

defeat to defeat, and flakes

the wax of the seals of

obscure kings who beseech

our armies’ protection,

offering in exchange annual

made us the heirs of their

long undoing. Only in Marco

Polo’s accounts was Kublai

Khan able to discern, through

the walls and towers destined

to crumble, the tracery of

a pattern so subtle it could

escape the termites’ gnawing.

Allied troops in Paris attaching Germans entrenched in public buildings, 11 September, 1944.

HIDDEN CITIES INVISIBLE CITIES | Page 12


HIDDEN CITIES INVISIBLE CITIES | Page 14 HIDDEN CITIES INVISIBLE CITIES | Page 15

HIDDEN CITIES

One

1

In Olinda, if you go out with a magnifying glass and hunt

carefully, you may find somewhere a point no bigger than the

head of a pin which, if you look at it slightly enlarged, reveals

within itself the roofs, the antennas, the skylights, the gardens,

the pools, the streamers across the streets, the kiosks in the

squares, the horse-racing track.

That point does not remain

there: a year later you will find

it the size of half a lemon, then

as large as a mushroom, then a

soup plate. And then it becomes

a full-size city, enclosed within

the earlier city: a new city

that forces its way ahead in

the earlier city and presses it

toward the outside.

Olinda is certainly not the only

city that grows in concentric

circles, like tree trunks which

each year add one more ring.

But in other cities there remains,

in the center, the old narrow

girdle of the walls from which the

withered spires rise, the towers,

the tiled roofs, the domes, while

the new quarters sprawl around

them like a loosened belt. Not

Olinda: the old walls expand

bearing the old quarters with

them, enlarged, but maintaining

their proportions on a broader

horizon at the edges of the city;

they surround the slightly newer

quarters, which also grew up on

the margins and became thinner

to make room for still more

recent ones pressing from inside;

and so, on and on, to the heart

of the city, a totally new Olinda

which, in its reduced dimensions

retains the features and the flow

of lymph of the first Olinda and

of all the Olindas that have

blossomed one from the other;

and within this innermost circle

there are already blossoming

though it is hard to discern

them—the next Olinda and

those that will grow after it.

...The Great Khan tried to

concentrate on the game: but

now it was the game’s reason

that eluded him. The end of

every game is a gain or a loss:

but of what? What were the

real stakes? At checkmate,

beneath the foot of the king,

knocked aside by the winner’s

hand, nothingness remains:

a black square, or a white

one. By disembodying bis

conquests to reduce them to

the essential, Kublai had arrived

at the extreme operation:

the definitive conquest, of

which the empire’s multiform

treasures were only illusory

envelopes; it was reduced to a

square of planed wood.

1


ROBERT CAPA

October 22, 1913 – May 25, 1954

BIOGRAPHY

Robert Capa was a Hungarian–American war photographer and photojournalist. He is considered by some

to be the greatest combat and adventure photographer in history.

Friedman had fled political repression in Hungary when he was a teenager, moving to Berlin, where he

enrolled in college. He witnessed the rise of Hitler, which led him to move to Paris, where he met and

began to work with his professional partner Gerda Taro, and they began to publish their work separately.

He subsequently covered five wars: the Spanish Civil War, the Second Sino-Japanese War, World War II

across Europe, the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and the First Indochina War, with his photos published in major

magazines and newspapers. He was killed when he stepped on a landmine in Vietnam.

Capa was born into a middle-class Jewish family in Budapest, where his parents were

tailors; Capa’s mother was a successful fashion shop owner, and his father was an

employee of her shop. Capa had two brothers: a younger brother, photographer Cornell

Capa and an older brother, László Friedmann. Cornell moved to Paris in 1936 to join his

older brother Capa, where he found an interest in photography instead of staying in

the field of medicine. Not much is known of Capa’s older brother László, except that he

married Angela Maria Friedmann-Csordas in 1933. He died a year later and was buried

next to his father in the Kozma Utca Jewish Cemetery.

At the age of 18, Capa moved to Vienna, later relocated to Prague, and finally settled

in Berlin: all cities that were centers of artistic and cultural ferment in this period. He

started studies in journalism at the German Political College, but the Nazi Party instituted

restrictions on Jews and banned them from colleges. Capa relocated to Paris, where he

adopted the name ‘Robert Capa’ in 1934. At that time, he had already been a hobbyphotographer.

Capa is known for redefining wartime photojournalism. His work came from the trenches

as opposed to the more arms-length perspective that was the precedent. He was famed

for saying,

“

If your pictures aren't good enough, you aren't close enough.

The origin of the quote can be traced back Over time, the quote has become

to an interview Capa gave to the journalist synonymous with Capa’s approach to

Richard Whelan in 1947 for the book “The photography and his bold, immersive style

Bitter Years: Edward Steichen and the Farm of capturing images in the midst of intense

Security Administration Photographs.” situations. It is often cited as an inspiration

In the interview, Capa discussed his

for photographers, emphasizing the

experiences photographing the D-Day importance of proximity and intimacy with

nvasion during World War II. When asked the subject matter to create powerful and

about the close proximity of his images, impactful photographs.

Capa replied, “The pictures are there, and

you just take them. If your pictures aren’t

good enough, you’re not close enough.”

“


ROBERT

CAPA


Then Marco Polo spoke: “Your chessboard, sire, is

inlaid with two woods: ebony and maple. The square

on which your enlightened gaze is fixed was cut from

the ring of a trunk that grew in a year of drought:

you see how its fibers are arranged? Here a barely

hinted knot can be made out: a bud tried to burgeon

on a premature spring day, but the night’s frost

forced it to desist.”

Until then the Great Khan had not realized that the

foreigner knew how to express himself fluently in his

language, but it was not this fluency that amazed

him.

“Here is a thicker pore: perhaps it was a larvum’s

nest; not a woodworm, because, once born, it would

have begun to dig, but a caterpillar that gnawed the

leaves and was the cause of the tree’s

being chosen for chopping down ... This edge

was scored by the wood carver with his gouge

so that it would adhere to the next square, more

protruding....”

The quantity of things that could be read in a little

piece of smooth and empty wood overwhelmed

Kublai; Polo was already talking about ebony forests,

about rafts laden with logs that come down the

rivers, of docks, of women at the windows....

The Great Khan owns an atlas

where all the cities of the empire

and the neighboring realms an

drawn, building by building and

street by street, with walls, rivers,

bridges, harbors, cliffs. He realizes

that from Marco Polo’s tales it is

pointless to expect news of those

places, which for that matter he

knows well: how at Kambalu,

capital of China, three square

cities stand one within the other,

each with four temples and four

gates that are opened according

to the seasons; how on the island

of Java the rhinoceros rages,

charging, with his murderous

horn; how pearls are

gathered on the ocean bed

off the coasts of Malabar.

Kublai asks

Marco, “When

you return to

the West, will

you repeat to your people

the same tales you tell me?”



BERENICE ABBOTT

July 17, 1898 – December 9, 1991

BIOGRAPHY

Berenice Abbott was an American photographer best known for her portraits of cultural figures of the

interwar period, New York City photographs of architecture and urban design of the 1930s, and science

interpretation of the 1940s to the 1960s.

Abbott was born in Springfield, Ohio and brought up in Ohio by her divorced mother, née Lillian Alice

Bunn (m. Charles E. Abbott in Chillicothe OH, 1886).

She attended Ohio State University for two semesters, but left in early 1918 when her professor was

dismissed because he was a German teaching an English class. She moved to New York City, where she

studied sculpture and painting. In 1921 she traveled to Paris and studied sculpture with Emile Bourdelle.

While in Paris, she became an assistant to Man Ray, who wanted someone with no previous knowledge of

photography. Abbott took revealing portraits of Ray’s fellow artists.

Her university studies included theater and sculpture. She spent two years studying

sculpture in Paris and Berlin. She studied at the Académie de la Grande Chaumiere in

Paris and the Prussian Academy of Arts in Berlin. During this time, she adopted the French

spelling of her first name, “Berenice,” at the suggestion of Djuna Barnes. In addition to

her work in the visual arts, Abbott published poetry in the experimental literary journal

transition. Abbott first became involved with photography in 1923, when Man Ray hired

her as a darkroom assistant at his portrait studio in Montparnasse. Later, she wrote:

“I took to photography like a duck to water. I never wanted to do anything else.” Ray

was impressed by her darkroom work and allowed her to use his studio to take her own

photographs. In 1921 her first major works was in an exhibition in the Parisian gallery Le

Sacre du Printemps. After a short time studying photography in Berlin, she returned to

Paris in 1927 and started a second studio, on the rue Servandoni.

Berenice Abbott, West Street, 1938, Silver Gelatin Photograph

“

Berenice Abbott is an American

photographer known for her documentary

and street photography. Abbott’s work

played a significant role in capturing the

essence of New York City during the 1930s.

The quote reflects Abbott’s belief in the

power of photography as a medium to

enhance perception and understanding.

She saw photography as a tool that could

not only capture the visible world but

also reveal hidden truths and encourage

viewers to engage more deeply with their

surroundings. Through her photographs,

Photography helps people to see.

“

Abbott aimed to provide a fresh

perspective and to awaken people’s

awareness of the world around them.

Abbott’s statement emphasizes the

ability of photography to uncover and

communicate stories, to shed light on

aspects of life that may otherwise go

unnoticed. It suggests that photography

has the capacity to open people’s

eyes, to encourage them to observe

and appreciate the world in a more

meaningful and perceptive way.


BERENICE

ABBOTT

Kublai asks Marco,

“When you return to the

West, will you repeat to

your people the same

tales you tell me?”

“I speak and speak,”

Marco says, “but the

listener retains only the

words he is expecting.

The description of the

world to which you lend

a benevolent ear is one

thing; the description

that will go the rounds of

the groups of stevedores

and gondoliers on the

street outside my house

the day of my return

is another; and yet

another, that which I

might dictate late in life,

if I were taken prisoner

by Genoese pirates

and put in irons in the

same cell with a writer

of adventure stories.

It is not the voice that

commands the story: it is

the ear.”


Kublai asks Marco, “When you return to the West, will

you repeat to your people the same tales you tell me?”

“At times I feel your

voice is reaching me

from far away, while I

am prisoner of a gaudy

and unlivable present,

when all forms of human

society have reached an

extreme of their cycle

and there is no imagining

what new forms they

may assume. And I hear,

from your voice, the

invisible reasons which

make cities live, through

which perhaps, once

dead, they will come to

life again.”

The Great Khan owns

an atlas whose drawings

depict the terrestrial

globe all at once and

continent by continent,

the borders of the most

distant realms, the ships’

routes, the coastlines, the

maps of the most illustrious

metropolises and of the

most opulent ports. He leafs

through the maps before

Marco Polo’s eyes to put

his knowledge to the test.

The traveler recognizes

Constantinople in the city

which from three shores

dominates a long strait, a

narrow gulf, and an enclosed

sea; he remembers that

Jerusalem is set on two

hills, of unequal height,

facing each other; he has

no hesitation in pointing to

Samarkand and its gardens.

For other cities he falls back

on descriptions handed down

by word of mouth, or he

guesses on the basis of scant

indications: and so Granada,

the streaked pearl of the

caliphs; Lübeck, the neat,

boreal port; Timbuktu, black

with ebony and white with

ivory; Paris, where millions of

men come home every day

grasping a wand of bread. In

colored miniatures the atlas

depicts inhabited places of

unusual form: an oasis hidden

in a fold of the desert from

which only palm crests peer

out is surely Nefta; a castle

amid quicksands and cows

grazing in meadows salted

by the tides can only suggest

Mont-Saint-Michel; and a

palace that instead of rising

within a city’s walls contains

within its own walls a city can

only be Urbino.

The atlas depicts cities

which neither Marco nor the

geographers know exist or

where they are, though

they cannot he missing

among the forms

of possible cities: a

Cuzco on a radial and

multipartite plan which

reflects the perfect

order of its trade, a

verdant Mexico on

the lake dominated by

Montezuma’s palace,

a Novgorod with

bulb-shaped domes,

a Lhassa whose white

roofs rise over the

cloudy roof of the

world. For these, too,

Marco says a name,

no matter which, and

suggests a route to

reach them. It is known

that names of places

change as many times

as there are foreign

languages; and that

every place can be

reached from other

places, by the most

various roads and

routes, by those who

ride, or drive, or row,

or fly.



AARON SISKIND

December 4, 1903 – February 8, 1991

BIOGRAPHY

Aaron Siskind was an American photographer whose work focuses on the details of things,

presented as flat surfaces to create a new image independent of the original subject. He was

closely involved with, if not a part of, the abstract expressionist movement, and was close

friends with painters Franz Kline (whose own breakthrough show at the Charles Egan Gallery

occurred in the same period as Siskind’s one-man shows at the same gallery), Mark Rothko, and

Willem de Kooning.

Siskind was born in New York City, growing up on the Lower East Side. Shortly after graduating

from City College, he became a public school English teacher. Siskind was a grade school English

teacher in the New York Public School System for 25 years, and began photography when he

received a camera as a wedding gift and began taking pictures on his honeymoon.

Early in his career Siskind

was a member of the New

York Photo League, where he

produced several significant

socially conscious series of

images in the 1930s, among

them “Harlem Document”.

In the 1940s, Siskind lived

above the Corner Book Shop,

at 102 Fourth Avenue in Manhattan;

he also maintained a

darkroom at this location.

Siskind was born in New York City, growing up on the Lower East Side. Shortly after

graduating from City College, he became a public school English teacher. Siskind was

a grade school English teacher in the New York Public School System for 25 years, and

began photography when he received a camera as a wedding gift and began taking

pictures on his honeymoon.

Early in his career Siskind was a member of the New York Photo League, where he

produced several significant socially conscious series of images in the 1930s, among them

“Harlem Document”.

In the 1940s, Siskind lived above the Corner Book Shop, at 102 Fourth Avenue in

Manhattan; he also maintained a darkroom at this location.

“

Photography is

a way of feeling,

of touching, of

loving. What you

have caught on

film is captured

forever... it

remembers

little things,

long after you

have forgotten

everything.

“

In 1950 Siskind was the first

to obtain the guggenheim

grant met Harry Callahan

when both were teaching at

Black Mountain College in

the summer, where he also

met Robert Rauschenberg

who throughout his life always

kept a particular Siskind

print on his work wall (see

MOMA retrospective 2017).

Later, Callahan persuaded

Siskind to join him as part of

the faculty of the IIT Institute

of Design in Chicago (founded

by László Moholy-Nagy as

the New Bauhaus. In 1971 he

followed Callahan (who had

left in 1961) by his invitation

to teach at the Rhode Island

School of Design, until both

retired in the late 1970s.

Siskind was an influential American

photographer known for his abstract and

expressive photography, particularly in

the realms of documentary and street

photography.

The quote reflects Siskind’s profound

understanding of the emotional and

lasting impact that photography can

have. Siskind believed that throughthe

act of photography, one could not

only capture visual moments but also

convey and evoke deep emotions. He

saw the camera as a tool that allowed

photographers to connect with their

subjects and the world around them on a

profound level.

Siskind’s quote suggests that a

photograph has the ability to preserve

memories and emotions that might

otherwise fade away with time. It implies

that the act of photographing is an act of

love and a means of capturing the essence

of a moment. According to Siskind, even

the smallest details that might be forgotten

by the human mind can be retained

through photography, serving as a lasting

testament to the experiences and emotions

captured in the image.


AARON

SISKIND


“I think you recognize cities better on the atlas than when you visit them in person,” the

emperor says to Marco, snapping the volume shut.

The end of every game is a gain or a loss: but of what? What were the real stakes?

At checkmate, beneath the foot of the king, knocked aside by the winner’s hand,

nothingness remains: a black square, or a white one.

And Polo answers, “Traveling, you realize that differences are lost: each city takes

to resembling all cities, places exchange their form, order, distances, a shapeless

dust cloud invades the continents. Your atlas preserves the differences intact: that

assortment of qualities which are like the letters in a name.”

The Great Khan owns an atlas in which are gathered the maps of all the cities: those

whose walls rest on solid foundations, those which fell in ruins and were swallowed

up by the sand, those that will exist one day and in whose place now only hares’ holes

gape.

Marco Polo leafs through the pages; he recognizes Jericho, Ur, Carthage, he points to

the landing at the mouth of the Scamander where the Achaean ships waited for ten

years to take the besiegers back on board, until the horse nailed together by Ulysses

was dragged by windlasses through the

Scaean gates. But speaking of Troy, he

happened to give the city the form of

Constantinople and foresee the siege which

Mohammed would lay for long months

until, astute as Ulysses, he had his ships

drawn at night up the streams from the

Bosporus to the Golden Horn, skirting Pera

and Galata. And from the mixture of those

two cities a third emerged, which might be

called San Francisco and which spans the

Golden Gate and the bay with long, light

bridges and sends open trams climbing its

steep streets, and which might blossom as

capital of the Pacific a millennium hence,

after the long siege of three hundred years

that would lead the races of the yellow

and the black and the red to fuse with the

surviving descendants of the whites in an

empire more vast than the Great Khan’s.

The atlas has these qualities: it reveals the

form of cities that do not yet have a form

or a name. There is the city in the shape

of Amsterdam, a semicircle facing north,

with concentric canals—the princes’, the

emperor’s, the nobles’; there is the city

in the shape of York, set among the high

moors, walled, bristling with towers; there

is the city in the shape of New Amsterdam

known also as New York, crammed with

towers of glass and steel on an oblong

island between two rivers, with streets

like deep canals, all of them straight,

except Broadway.

The catalogue of forms is endless: until

every shape has found its city, new

cities will continue to be born. When

the forms exhaust their variety and

come apart, the end of cities begins.

In the last pages of the atlas there is

an outpouring of networks without

beginning or end, cities in the shape

of Los Angeles, in the shape of Kyōto-

Ōsaka, without shape.



HIDDEN CITIES

Two

2

In Raissa, life is not happy. People wring their hands as they

walk in the streets, curse the crying children, lean on the

railings over the river and press their fists to their temples. In

the morning you wake from one bad dream and another begins.

At the workbenches where, every moment, you hit your finger

with a hammer or prick it with a needle, or over the columns

of figures all awry in the ledgers of merchants and bankers,

or at the rows of empty glasses on the zinc counters of the

wineshops, the bent heads at least conceal the general grim

gaze. Inside the houses it is worse, and you do not have to enter

to learn this: in the summer the windows resound with quarrels

and broken dishes.

1

2


PAUL STRAND

October 16, 1890 – March 31, 1976

BIOGRAPHY

Paul Strand was an American photographer and

filmmaker who, along with fellow modernist

photographers like Alfred Stieglitz and Edward

Weston, helped establish photography as

an art form in the 20th century. In 1936, he

helped found the Photo League, a cooperative

of photographers who banded together

around a range of common social and creative

causes. His diverse body of work, spanning six

decades, covers numerous genres and subjects

throughout the Americas, Europe, and Africa.

Paul Strand was born Nathaniel Paul Stransky on

October 16, 1890, in New York; his Bohemian

parents were merchant Jacob Stransky and

Matilda Stransky (née Arnstein). When Paul was

12, his father gave him a camera as a present.

In his late teens, he was a student of a renowned

documentary photographer Lewis Hine

at the Ethical Culture Fieldston School. It

was while on a field trip in this class that

Strand first visited the 291 art gallery

– operated by Stieglitz and Edward

Steichen – where exhibitions of work by

forward-thinking modernist photographers

and painters would move Strand to take

his photographic hobby more seriously.

Stieglitz later promoted Strand’s work in

the 291 gallery itself, in his photography

publication Camera Work, and in his

artwork in the Hieninglatzing studio. Some

of this early work, like the well-known

Wall Street, experimented with formal

abstractions (influencing, among others,

Edward Hopper and his idiosyncratic urban

vision). Other of Strand’s works reflect his

interest in using the camera as a tool for

social reform. When taking portraits, he

would often mount a false brass lens to the

side of his camera while photographing

using a second working lens hidden under

his arm. This meant that Strand’s subjects

likely had no idea he was taking their

picture.It was a move some criticized.

Strand was one of the founders of

the Photo League, an association of

photographers who advocated using their

art to promote social and political causes.

Strand and Elizabeth McCausland were

“particularly active” in the League, with

Strand serving as “something of an elder

statesman.” Both Strand and McCausland

were “clearly left-leaning,” with Strand

“more than just sympathetic to Marxist

ideas.” Strand, McCausland, Ansel Adams,

and Nancy Newhall all contributed to the

League’s publication, Photo News.

In 1948, CBS commissioned Strand to

contribute a photo for an advertisement

captured “It is Now Tomorrow”: Strand’s

photo showed television antennas atop

New York City.

“

Paul Strand was an influential American

photographer and filmmaker known for his

contributions to modern photography and his

documentary-style images.

The artist’s world is limitless. It can be found anywhere,

far from where he lives or a few feet away. It is always

on his doorstep.

This quote reflects Strand’s perspective on the

creative process and the artist’s mindset. It

suggests that an artist, including a photographer,

possesses a boundless world of inspiration and

creative possibilities. According to Strand, the

artist’s world is not confined to a specific location

or limited by physical boundaries. Instead, it is an

expansive realm that can be found in any setting,

whether it be far away or right at their doorstep.

Strand’s quote encourages artists, including

photographers, to embrace the idea that

creativity and inspiration can be found anywhere.

Strand married the painter Rebecca

Salsbury on January 21, 1922. He

photographed her frequently, sometimes

in unusually intimate, closely cropped

compositions. After divorcing Salsbury,

Strand married Virginia Stevens in 1935.

They divorced in 1949; he then married

Hazel Kingsbury in 1951 and they

remained married until his death in 1976.

The timing of Strand’s departure to

France is coincident with the first libel

trial of his friend Alger Hiss, with whom

he maintained a correspondence until his

death. Although he was never officially a

member of the Communist Party, many

of Strand’s collaborators were either

Party members (James Aldridge; Cesare

Zavattini) or prominent socialist writers

and activists (Basil Davidson). Many

of his friends were also Communists

or suspected of being so (Member of

Parliament D. N. Pritt; film director Joseph

Losey; Scottish poet Hugh MacDiarmid;

actor Alex McCrindle). Strand was also closely involved with Frontier Films, one of more than

20 organizations that were identified as “subversive” and “un-American” by the US Attorney

General. When he was asked by an interviewer why he decided to go to France, Strand began

by noting that in America, at the time of his departure, “McCarthyism was becoming rife and

poisoning the minds of an awful lot of people.”

“

It emphasizes

the importance

of being

open to the

beauty and

possibilities

that surround

us, no matter

how mundane

or ordinary

they may

initially seem.

The quote suggests that the artist’s

perception and ability to see and

appreciate the world are crucial in

finding extraordinary moments and

capturing them through their chosen

medium.


PAUL

STRAND


And yet, in Raissa, at every moment

there is a child in a window who

laughs seeing a dog that has jumped

on a shed to bite into a piece of

polenta dropped by a stonemason

who has shouted from the top of

the scaffolding, “Darling, let me dip

into it,” to a young serving-maid

who holds up a dish of ragout under

the pergola, happy to serve it to the

umbrella-maker who is celebrating

a successful transaction, a white

lace parasol bought to

display at the races by a

great lady in love with an

officer who has smiled at

her taking the last jump,

happy man, and still

happier his horse, flying

over the obstacles, seeing

a francolin flying in the sky,

happy bird freed from its

cage by a painter happy at

having painted it feather

by feather, speckled with

red and yellow in the

illumination of that page

in the volume where the

philosopher says: “Also

in Raissa, city of sadness,

there runs an invisible

thread that binds one

living being to another for

a moment, then unravels,

then is stretched again

between moving points

as it draws new and rapid

patterns so that at every

second the unhappy

city contains a happy

city unaware of its own

existence.”


HIDDEN CITIES

Three

3

A sibyl, questioned about Marozia’s fete, said,

“I see two cities: one of the rat, one of the swallow.”

1

3


BRASSAÏ

9 September 1899 – 8 July 1984

BIOGRAPHY

Brassaï was a Hungarian–French

photographer, sculptor, medalist,[1] writer,

and filmmaker who rose to international

fame in France in the 20th century. He was

one of the numerous Hungarian artists who

flourished in Paris beginning between the

world wars.

In the early 21st century, the discovery

of more than 200 letters and hundreds of

drawings and other items from the period

1940 to 1984 has provided scholars with

material for understanding his later life and

career.

Gyula (Julius) Halász, Brassaï (pseudonym)

was born on 9 September 1899 in Brassó,

Kingdom of Hungary (today Brașov,

Romania) to an Armenian mother and a

Hungarian father. He grew up speaking

Hungarian and Romanian. When he was

three his family lived in Paris for a year,

while his father, a professor of French

literature, taught at the Sorbonne.

As a young man, Halász studied painting

and sculpture at the Hungarian Academy

of Fine Arts (Magyar Képzőművészeti

Egyetem) in Budapest. He joined a cavalry

regiment of the Austro-Hungarian army,

where he served until the end of the First

World War.

He cited Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec as an

artistic influence.

Following WWI, his hometown of Brassó,

and the rest of Transylvania, was transferred

from the Kingdom of Hungary to Romania

at the Treaty of Trianon. Halász left for

Berlin in 1920 where he worked as a

journalist for the Hungarian papers Keleti

and Napkelet. He started studies at the

Berlin-Charlottenburg Academy of Fine

Arts (Hochschule für Bildende Künste),

now Universität der Künste Berlin. There

he became friends with several older

Hungarian artists and writers, including

the painters Lajos Tihanyi and Bertalan Pór,

and the writer György Bölöni, each of whom

later moved to Paris and became part of the

Hungarian circle.

In 1924, Halasz moved to Paris to live, where

he would stay for the rest of his life. He began

teaching himself the French language by

reading the works of Marcel Proust. Living

among the gathering of young artists in

the Montparnasse quarter, he took a job as

a journalist. He soon became friends with

the American writer Henry Miller, and the

French writers Léon-Paul Fargue and Jacques

Prévert. In the late 1920s, he lived in the same

hotel as Tihanyi.

Miller later played down Brassai’s claims

of friendship. In 1976 he wrote of Brassai:

“Fred [Perles] and I used to steer shy of

him – he bored us.” Miller added that the

biography Brassai had written of him was

typically “padded”, “full of factual errors,

full of suppositions, rumors, documents he

filched which are largely false or give a false

impression.”

Halász’s job and his love of the city, whose

streets he often wandered late at night, led to

photography. He first used it to supplement

some of his articles for more money, but

rapidly explored the city through this

medium, in which he was tutored by his fellow

Hungarian André Kertész. He later wrote that

he used photography “to capture the beauty

of streets and gardens in the rain and fog, and

to capture Paris by night.” Using the name of

his birthplace, Halász went by the pseudonym

“Brassaï,” which means “from Brasso.”

Brassaï captured the essence of the city in his

photographs, published as his first collection

in the 1933 book entitled Paris de nuit (Paris

by Night). His book gained great success,

resulting in being called “the eye of Paris”

in an essay by Henry Miller. In addition to

photos of the seedier side of Paris, Brassai

portrayed scenes from the life of the city’s

high society, its intellectuals, its ballet, and

the grand operas. He had been befriended by

a French family who gave him access to the

upper classes. Brassai photographed many of

his artist friends, including Salvador Dalí, Pablo

Picasso, Henri Matisse, Alberto Giacometti,

and several of the prominent writers of his

time, such as Jean Genet and Henri Michaux.

Young Hungarian artists continued to arrive

in Paris through the 1930s and the Hungarian

Night does not show things,

it suggests them. It disturbes

and surprises us with its

strangeness. It liberates forces

within us which are dominated

by our reason during the

“daytime.

“

Strand’s quote encourages artists, including

photographers, to embrace the idea that creativity

and inspiration can be found anywhere. It emphasizes

the importance of being open to the beauty and

possibilities that surround us, no matter how mundane

or ordinary they may initially seem. The quote

suggests that the artist’s perception and ability to

see and appreciate the world are crucial in finding

extraordinary moments and capturing them through

their chosen medium.

circle absorbed most of them. Kertèsz

immigrated to New York City in 1936. Brassai

befriended many of the new arrivals, including

Ervin Marton, a nephew of Tihanyi, whom

he had been friends with since 1920. Marton

developed his own reputation in street

photography in the 1940s and 1950s. Brassaï

continued to earn a living with commercial

work, also taking photographs for the U.S.

magazine Harper’s Bazaar.

He was a founding member of the Rapho

agency, created in Paris by Charles Rado in

1933.

Brassaï’s photographs brought him

international fame. In 1948, he had a one-man

show at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)

in New York City, which travelled to George

Eastman House in Rochester, New York; and

the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois.MoMA

exhibited more of Brassai’s works in 1953,

1956, and 1968.[8] He was presented at the

Rencontres d’Arles festival in France in 1970

(screening at the Théâtre Antique, Brassaï by

Jean-Marie Drot), in 1972 (screening Brassaï si,

Vominino by René Burri), and in 1974 (as guest

of honour).

In 1979 Brassaï was inducted into the

International Photography Hall of Fame and

Museum.


BRASSAÏ

Italian, 1925–2000

This was the interpretation of the

oracle: today Marozia is a city where

all run through leaden passages

like packs of rats who tear from

one another’s teeth the leftovers

which fell from the teeth of the most

voracious ones; but a new century

is about to begin in which all the

inhabitants of Marozia will fly like

swallows in the summer sky, calling

one another as in a game, showing

off, their wings still, as they swoop,

clearing the air of mosquitos and

gnats.

“It is time for the century of the

rat to end and the century of

the swallow to begin,” the more

determined said. In feet, already

beneath the grim and petty rattish

dominion, you could sense, among

the less obvious people a pondering,

the preparation of a swallowlike

flight, heading for the transparent

air with a deft flick of the tail, then

tracing with their wings’ blade the

curve of an opening horizon.

open and a different city appear. Then, an instant

later, it has already vanished. Perhaps everything

lies in knowing what words to speak, what actions

to perform, and in what order and rhythm; or else

someone’s gaze, answer, gesture is enough; it

is enough for someone to do something for the

sheer pleasure of doing it, and for his pleasure to

become the pleasure of others: at that moment,

all spaces change, all heights, distances; the city is

transfigured, becomes crystalline, transparent as

a dragonfly. But everything must happen as if by

chance, without attaching too much importance to it,

without insisting that you are performing a decisive

operation, remembering learly that any moment the

old Marozia will return and solder its ceiling of stone,

cobwebs, and mold over all heads.

Was the oracle mistaken? Not necessarily. I interpret

it in this way: Marozia consists of two cities, the rat’s

and the swallow’s; both change with time, but their

relationship does not change; the second is the one

about to free itself from the first.

I have come back to Marozia after

many years: for some time the sibyl’s

prophecy is considered to have

come true; the old century is dead

and buried, the new is at its climax.

The city has surely changed, and

perhaps for the better. But the wings

I have seen moving about are those

of suspicious umbrellas under which

heavy eyelids are lowered; there are

people who believe they are flying,

but it is already an achievement if

they can get off the ground flapping

their batlike overcoats.

It also happens that, if you move

along Marozia’s compact walls, when

you least expect it, you see a crack



4

HIDDEN CITIES

Four

Recurrent invasions racked the city of Theodora in the

centuries of its history; no sooner was one enemy routed than

another gained strength and threatened the survival of the

inhabitants. When the sky was cleared of condors, they had to

face the propagation of serpents; the spiders’ extermination

allowed the flies to multiply into a black swarm; the victory

over the termites left the city at the mercy of the woodworms.

One by one the species incompatible to the city had to

succumb and were extinguished. By dint of ripping away

scales and carapaces, tearing off elytra and feathers, the people

gave Theodora the exclusive image of human city that still

distinguishes it.

4


MARIO GIACONELLI

1 August 1925 – 25 November 2000

BIOGRAPHY

Mario Giacomelli was an Italian photographer and photojournalist in the genre of humanism.

Giacomelli was born in the sea-port town of Senigallia in the Marche region of Italy into a

family of modest means. Only nine when his father died, at 13, the boy left high school to

work as a typesetter and spent his weekends painting and writing poetry. After the horrors of

World War II, from 1953 he turned to the more immediate medium of photography and joined

the Misa Group, formed that year.

Giacomelli’s technique is distinctive. After

beginning with the popular and robust Comet

127 film-format viewfinder camera, made

in Italy by CMF Bencini from 1948 into the

1950s, in 1954 he bought a second-hand

Kobell, a larger coupled rangefinder camera

for 6x9 plates and film, one of only about 400

made by Boniforti and Ballerio in Milan from

about 1952, and modified it himself. He was

unafraid of exploiting the double-exposure

capability of its Compur shutter, as well

as soft focus, camera movement and slow

shutter speeds. His images are high-contrast, quite unlike the modulated full tonal range

of his mentor Cavalli, and are the result of using electronic flash, from overdevelopment

of his film and compensatory heavy printing so that nearly-black forms ‘float’ against a

white ground. In accounting for these choices he referred to his printing-industry and

graphic arts training; “For me the photographic film is like a printing plate, a lithograph,

where images and emotions become stratified.” After 1986, especially in his 1992-3

series Il pittore Bastari (‘The painter Bastari’) he artificially included consciously symbolic

cardboard masks and toy dogs.tailors; Capa’s mother was a successful fashion shop

owner, and his father was an employee of her shop. Capa had two brothers: a younger

brother, photographer Cornell Capa and an older brother, László Friedmann. Cornell

moved to Paris in 1936 to join his older brother Capa, where he found an interest in

photography instead of staying in the field of medicine. Not much is known of Capa’s

older brother László, except that he married Angela Maria Friedmann-Csordas in 1933. He

died a year later and was buried next to his father in the Kozma Utca Jewish Cemetery.

At the age of 18, Capa moved to Vienna, later relocated to Prague, and finally settled

in Berlin: all cities that were centers of artistic and cultural ferment in this period. He

started studies in journalism at the German Political College, but the Nazi Party instituted

restrictions on Jews and banned them from colleges. Capa relocated to Paris, where he

adopted the name ‘Robert Capa’ in 1934. At that time, he had already been a hobbyphotographer.

“

I was honest towards the people I photographed in Scanno,

because it was not my intention to say anything about their

social condition. I was involved neither with political issues

nor with the trend of seeking misery and poverty which many

photographers had towards the south of Italy at that time. In

Scanno I just wanted to dream; and I dreamt.

“

After pre-war years dominated by a Pictorialist aesthetic promoted by the Fascist

government, these artists enjoyed experimenting with form. He wandered the streets

and fields of post-war Italy, inspired by the gritty Neo-Realist films of Vittorio De Sica and

Roberto Rossellini,and influenced by the renowned Italian photographer Giuseppe Cavalli,

founder of Misa, and developing a style characterized by radical compositions, bold cropping

and stark contrasts.

In 1955 he was discovered in Italy by Paolo Monti, and beginning in 1963, became known

outside Italy through John Szarkowski of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Giacomelli was inspired by the literature of

Cesare Pavese, Giacomo Leopardi (a native

of Giacomelli’s region) and the postwar

existentialist Eugenio Montale, giants

of Italian writing, from which he often

borrowed titles for his picture series, such

as the confronting, unsentimental pictures

he made (1955–57) in an old-people’s

home, where his mother worked as a

washer-woman; Verrà la more e avrà i tuoi

occhi (‘Death will come and will have your

eyes’), taken from a Pavese poem. He

wrote his own poetry and his pictures are

a reflection of their visual language.

Like other members of Misa, Giacomelli

photographed the simple lives of the poor

of southern Italy, in 1957 and 1959 visiting

Scanno, a small town in the Abruzzii

region which Henri Cartier-Bresson had

visited only five years before to make

quite different pictures.


MARIO

GIACONELLI

Italian, 1925–2000

But first, for many long years, it was

uncertain whether or not the final victory

would not go to the last species left to

fight man’s possession of the city: the rats.

From each generation of rodents that the

people managed to exterminate, the few

surviviors gave birth to a tougher progeny,

invulnerable to traps and resistant to all

poison. In the space of a few weeks, the

sewers of Theodora were repopulated

with hordes of spreading rats. At last,

with an extreme massacre, the murderous,

versatile ingenuity of mankind defeated

the overweening life-force of the enemy.

Having said this, I do not wish your

eyes to catch a distorted image, so

I must draw your attention to an

intrinsic quality of this unjust city

germinating secretly inside the secret

just city: and this is the possible

awakening—as if in an excited

opening of windows—of a later

love for justice, not yet subjected

to rules, capable of reassembling

a city still more just than it was

before it became the vessel of injustice.

But if you peer deeper into

this new germ of justice you can

discern a tiny spot that is spreading

like the mounting tendency to

impose what is just through what

is unjust, and perhaps this is the

germ of an immense metropolis....

The city, great cemetery of the

animal kingdom, was closed, aseptic,

over the final buried corpses with

their last fleas and their last germs.

Man had finally reestablished the

order of the world which he had

himself upset: no other living species

existed to cast any doubts. To recall

what had been fauna, Theodora’s

library would preserve on its shelves

the volumes of Buffon and Linnaeus.

From my words you will have reached

the conclusion that the real Berenice

is a temporal succession of different

cities, alternately just and unjust. But

what I wanted to warn you about is

something else: all the future Berenices

are already present in this instant,

wrapped one within the other, confined,

crammed, inextricable.



HIDDEN CITIES

Five

5

I should not tell you of Berenice, the unjust city, which crowns

with triglyphs, abaci, metopes the gears of its meat-grinding

machines (the men assigned to polishing, when they raise

their chins over the balustrades and contemplate the atria,

stairways, porticos, feel even more imprisoned and short of

stature). Instead, I should tell you of the hidden Berenice, the

city of the just, handling makeshift materials in the shadowy

rooms behind the shops and beneath the stairs, linking a

network of wires and pipes and pulleys and pistons and

counterweights that infiltrates like a climbing plant among

the great cogged wheels (when they jam, a subdued ticking

gives warning that a new precision mechanism is governing

the city). Instead of describing to you the perfumed pools

of the baths where the unjust of Berenice recline and weave

their intrigues with rotund eloquence and observe with a

proprietary eye the rotund flesh of the bathing odalisques, I

should say to you how the just, always cautious to evade the

spying sycophants and the Janizaries’ mass arrests, recognize

one another by their way of speaking, especially their

pronunciation of commas and parentheses; from their habits

which remain austere and innocent, avoiding complicated

and nervous moods; from their sober but tasty cuisine, which

evokes an ancient golden age: rice and celery soup, boiled

beans, fried squash flowers. From these data it is possible to

deduce an image of the future Berenice, which will bring you

closer to knowing the truth than any other information about

the city as it is seen today. You must nevertheless bear in mind

what I am about to say to you: in the seed of the city of the

just, a malignant seed is hidden, in its turn: the certainty and

pride of being in the right—and of being more just than many

others who call themselves more just than the just. This seed

ferments in bitterness, rivalry, resentment; and the natural

desire of revenge on the unjust is colored by a yearning to be

in their place and to act as they do. Another unjust city, though

different from the first, is digging out its space within the

double sheath of the unjust and just Berenices.

1

5


JERRY UELSMANN

June 11, 1934 – April 4, 2022

BIOGRAPHY

Jerry Norman Uelsmann was an American

photographer.

As an emerging artist in the 1960s, Jerry

Uelsmann received international recognition for

surreal, enigmatic photographs (photomontages)

made with his unique method of composite

printing and his dedication to revealing the

deepest emotions of the human condition.

Over the next six decades, his contributions

to contemporary photography were firmly

established with important exhibitions,

prestigious awards and numerous publications.

Among his awards were a Guggenheim

Fellowship, National Endowment, Royal

Photographic Society Fellowship, and Lucie

Award.

Uelsmann described his creative process

as a journey of discovery in the darkroom

(visual research laboratory). Going against the

established practice of previsualization (Ansel

Adams, Edward Weston and others), he

coined a new term, post-visualization. He

decided the contents of the final print

after rather than before pressing the

shutter button. Uelsmann constructed

his dreams like a visual poet with results

that often seemed emotionally more

real than the factual world. By the1980s

he became one of the most collected

photographers in America. His work

influenced generations of both analog

and digital photographers. Although

he admired digital photography, he

remained completely dedicated to the

alchemy of film photography in the black

and white darkroom.

Uelsmann, a native of Detroit,

Michigan, credited his parents Norman

(a grocer,1904-1962) and Florence

(Crossman) Uelsmann (a homemaker,

1903–1986) for encouraging his

creativity. His mother saved his artworks

beginning in kindergarten and continuing

into college. Uelsmann’s father, whose

hobby was photography, built a

basement darkroom (c. 1948) to share

with his two sons, Jerry and Robert.

In high school he worked as a

photographer for the school newspaper

and later attended Rochester Institute

of Technology earning a BFA degree in

1957.

At RIT he was influenced by Minor

White and Ralph Hattersley who

taught craftsmanship (technical

precision) along with the emotional

and perceptual aspects of fine arts

photography. Uelsmann appreciated

White’s mystical philosophy and devotion

to Zen-like meditation even when not

photographing. He was particularly

affected by Minor White’s belief that

fine arts photographers should “strive to

capture subjects for what they are and

for what else they are”.

Uelsmann, known for his innovative and imaginative approach to photography, has spoken about

the idea of the camera as a tool for exploration and creative expression.

“

The simple act of having a camera, not a cell phone, but a

camera-camera, there’s a kind of a heightened perceptional

awareness that occurs. Like, I could walk from here to the

highway in two minutes, but if I had a camera, that walk could

take me two hours.

The abovementioned quote reflects Uelsmann’s

belief that the camera grants photographers

the freedom to delve into uncharted territories,

both externally and internally. It suggests

that through the act of photography, one can

embark on a journey of discovery, pushing

the boundaries of visual representation and

personal introspection.

The quote captures his perspective on how the

act of photographing with a camera-camera can

transform one’s perception of the surroundings

and lead to a more immersive and mindful

experience.

“

Uelsmann’s line of work often involved

intricate darkroom techniques, combining

multiple images to create dreamlike and

surreal compositions. With this quote,

he emphasizes that the camera serves

as a vehicle for exploration, enabling

photographers to push the limits of their

creativity and capture moments and visions

that might otherwise remain unseen.


JERRY

UELSMANN


From these data it is possible to deduce an image of the future

Berenice, which will bring you closer to knowing the truth than any other

information about the city as it is seen today. You must nevertheless

bear in mind what I am about to say to you: in the seed of the city of

the just, a malignant seed is hidden, in its turn: the certainty and pride

of being in the right—and of being more just than many others who call

themselves more just than the just. This seed ferments in bitterness,

rivalry, resentment; and the natural desire of revenge on the unjust is

colored by a yearning to be in their place and to act as they do. Another

unjust city, though different from the first, is digging out its space within

the double sheath of the unjust and just Berenices.

Having said this, I do not wish your eyes to catch a distorted image, so I must draw

your attention to an intrinsic quality of this unjust city germinating secretly inside

the secret just city: and this is the possible awakening—as if in an excited opening

of windows—of a later love for justice, not yet subjected to rules, capable of

reassembling a city still more just than it was before it became the vessel of injustice.

But if you peer deeper into this new germ of justice you can discern a tiny spot that is

spreading like the mounting tendency to impose what is just through what is unjust,

and perhaps this is the germ of an immense metropolis....

From my words you will have reached the conclusion that the real Berenice is a

temporal succession of different cities, alternately just and unjust. But what I wanted

to warn you about is something else: all the future Berenices are already present in

this instant, wrapped one within the other, confined, crammed, inextricable.



The end.

Dear readers,

As we come to the end of this remarkable journey through the pages of our photobook, I

find myself overwhelmed with a sense of awe and wonder. In the captivating realms of hidden

cities, we have traversed the imagination and creativity of Italo Calvino, finding inspiration

in his literary masterpiece, “Invisible Cities.” Now, as we bid farewell, I am filled with

a deep appreciation for the seven artists whose extraordinary photographs have breathed

life into the essence of our 9 panels assignment.

Each turn of the page has transported us to a new destination, where reality and fantasy intermingle,

blurring the boundaries between what is seen and what lies beneath the surface.

Just like the hidden cities in Calvino’s enchanting tales, these images have woven tales of

their own, capturing the essence of places both tangible and ethereal.

Through the lens of these talented artists, we have witnessed the delicate interplay of light

and shadows, the vibrant tapestry of colors, and the symphony of emotions that permeate

these hidden cities. They have invited us to explore the depths of our own imagination, to

question the boundaries of our perception, and to embrace the beauty of the unknown.

It is my sincerest hope that this photobook has sparked your curiosity, kindled your sense

of adventure, and offered you moments of respite from the constraints of reality. In these

pages, we have sought to ignite the flame of inspiration within you, urging you to embark

on your own voyages of discovery and to uncover the hidden treasures that lie in wait.

Thank you, dear readers, for joining us on this extraordinary journey. May these hidden

cities continue to linger in your thoughts, whispering their secrets and inspiring your own

creative endeavors. May the images captured by these artists forever be etched in your

memory, reminding you of the boundless beauty that exists in the world around us.

With heartfelt gratitude and warm wishes,

Pho

HIDDEN CITIES

Kublai Khan does not necessarily believe everything Marco Polo says when he

describes the cities visited on his expeditions, but the emperor of the Tartars

does continue listening to the young Venetian with greater attention and curiosity

than he shows any other messenger or explorer of his.” So begins Italo Calvino’s

compilation of fragmentary urban images. As Marco tells the khan about Armilla,

which “has nothing that makes it seem a city, except the water pipes that rise

vertically where the houses should be and spread out horizontally where the floors

should be,” the spider-web city of Octavia, and other marvelous burgs, it may be

that he is creating them all out of his imagination, or perhaps he is recreating fine

details of his native Venice over and over again, or perhaps he is simply recounting

some of the myriad possible forms a city might take.

© WIKIPEDIA

ITALO CALVINO (1923–1985) was an

Italian journalist and writer of short stories

and novels. His best known works include

the Our Ancestors trilogy (1952–1959),

the Cosmicomics collection of short

stories (1965), and the novels Invisible

Cities (1972) and If on a winter’s night a

traveler (1979). Lionized in Britain and

America, he was, at the time of his death,

the mosttranslated contemporary Italian

writer.

FELTRINELLI

PRIZE FOR

LITERATURE

-ITALO CALVINO

“If they are forms, they are also like signals condensing in themselves power that

awaits its translation into form. And Calvino’s book is like no other know.”

-THE NEW YORK TIMES

“It’s hard to imagine a more authentic travelogue than Calvino’s work of fiction.”

-LOS ANGELES REVIEW OF BOOKS

Printed in South Korea

Jacket Illustration by Pho Vu

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN HARCOURT

PUBLISHING COMPANY

an acquisition of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

215 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10003.

www.hmhbooks.com

© 1974 by Harcourt Brace & Company

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Hidden Cities: A Photobook

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