Giovanni Negri, (1856-1919) whose family came from Pavia, opened a small photograph studio at Brescia in 1890.

At first he concentrated on outdoor views but later he specialised in images that documented the world of factories and industry.

Images of villages and cities which were undergoing rapid and ever accelerating transformations have now become priceless documents of how the old disappeared into the new with barely a pause but the studio increasingly dedicated itself to the industrial arena and that of advertising. His son Umberto continued the work of his father, as did Costantino, Umberto’s son in law and his own son Mauro. The accumulated work of the four generations constitutes an impressive pictorial archive.