A book recounting the life of a great 20th-century photographer and the story of his “hidden” archive is coming to bookstores. It was written by Silvia Di Paolo, who also curated, together with Giovanna Calvenzi, the exhibition on display at the Palazzo Ducale in Genoa until 6 April 2026

When 17-year-old Silvia crosses the threshold of the basement in search of skis and boots, she comes across a series of photographic negatives stored inside a cabinet, and everything changes. This hidden treasure, which soon captures Silvia’s attention and guides her research, belongs to her father, Paolo Di Paolo, who years earlier chose to consign it to oblivion. These events form the basis of the novel Qualcosa dovrà succedere, written by Silvia Di Paolo with writer and screenwriter Antonio Leotti, published by Marsilio Editori and due to appear in bookshops on 6 March 2026.
More than just a biography, the book describes the rise of a photographer from Molise who was able to immortalise, through his lens, the protagonists of Italian culture in the 1950s and 1960s – from Pasolini to Moravia, from Fellini to Anna Magnani – as well as the atmosphere in Italy in the aftermath of the Second World War.
Intertwining collective and personal events, the novel is also a tool for evoking the complex relationship between a father and a daughter, destined to be transformed thanks to photography. Now curator of the Paolo Di Paolo Photographic Archive, Silvia has contributed significantly to the rediscovery of her father’s work, who passed away in 2023 at the age of 98. One example of this is the exhibition, curated together with Giovanna Calvenzi, in the Sottoporticato of the Palazzo Ducale in Genoa. Open until 6 April 2026, the exhibition features around three hundred photographs, including some previously unseen early images and colour photographs, paying tribute to the career of an author who was able to interpret his own time and capture the faces of those who lived in it – from artists and intellectuals to ordinary people.

BIO
Silvia Di Paolo is an art director and graphic designer. From 1998 to 2018, she curated editorial, advertising and communication projects, collaborating with brands such as Bulgari, Moleskine, MAXXI Museum and Universal Records. In 2011, she founded the brand Supernature Visionary Unlimited, through which she works with the audiovisual and fashion industries on iconographic research and the creation of mood boards and visual treatments for screenplays. In 2017, her father donated the Paolo Di Paolo Photographic Archive to her, of which she is the curator and archivist.

INFO
PAOLO DI PAOLO. Fotografie ritrovate
until 6 April 2026
PALAZZO DUCALE – Sottoporticato
Piazza Matteotti 9, Genoa
https://palazzoducale.genova.it/

Image captions:

The cover of the book by Silvia Di Paolo with Antonio Leotti, Qualcosa dovrà succedere, Marsilio Editori, Venice 2026

Paolo Di Paolo by Bruce Weber, 2017. © Archivio Fotografico Paolo Di Paolo (cover photo)