Pinhole photography was popular around the turn of the 19th century. It was cheap, you could make your own camera or buy a commercial one. In Italy, in 1905, Luigi Sassi wrote a 135 page manual on pinhole photography, La fotografia senza obiettivo, “Photography without a lens”. The book was published in Milan in the Hoepli series of manuals.
Sassi’s book has chapters on the history of photography, the pinhole camera and accessories, making the pinhole, determining the focal distance, exposure times and other useful information. The book has 12 plates of pinhole photographs.
Below is a more than 100-year-old pinhole photograph of the Ponte Vecchio in Florence.
Luigi Sassi also published other books on photography. One of the most famous ones is I primi passi in fotografia, “First steps in photography”. The book was first published in 1905 and was later reprinted in several new editions.