Guido Giannini was born in 1930. He is an internationally renowned photographer. His life story, set in Naples, spans almost a century. He lived through the difficult years of World War II, when people had to get by procuring smuggled oil and bread. He remembers the Quattro Giornate of Naples in the Vomero district, and the many different jobs he held — luthier, employee in a pawn loan agency, night watchman, toymaker — until his encounter with photography, which happened almost by chance, when his uncle brought him an Agfa folding camera from America. But it was several years later that he gained recognition, when Mario Pannunzio bought ten of his photographs to publish them in the weekly magazine Il Mondo.
He describes himself as a “thief of images” because he has always loved photographing life — the people he met by chance on the streets during his daily wanderings. His vintage photographs are strictly analogic documents, never larger than 18 x 24 cm, because he printed them at home in the darkroom he set up on the kitchen table at night, after his wife and daughter had gone to bed.
Throughout his childhood and until the late 1950s, he lived in Vomero, in Villa Belvedere, in the house of his grandfather Diego Giannini, who had been a well-known tenor and the most beloved performer of Libero Bovio’s songs. Because of his roots, he calls himself an “original piede di broccolo” (a native of Vomero) and recalls how, as a child, he would go with the farmers’ children into the countryside along Via Cilea to steal plums, cherries, and broad beans, depending on the season. In the autumn months, he would collect the acorns that fell from the great oaks of Villa Belvedere to sell them to pig farmers in Camaldoli and earn twelve soldi to spend on movie tickets at the Olimpia cinema.
He vividly remembers when Neapolitan families used to make lard and sun-dried tomato paste at home. His madeleine is polenta with milk, which his mother — born in Cattaro and raised in Zara — used to prepare for him. His favorite dish is sausages with friarielli (broccoli rabe). He is a convinced carnivore, loves tripe and cheese, adores sugar, and has a sweet tooth for desserts, especially cassatine and cannoli, yet his blood tests are perfect. He doesn’t drink wine — his first glass was to please the rom of Scampia, whom he photographed in 1979 during a wedding celebration. As for coffee, he only appreciates its aroma.
Anarchism has been his political philosophy, leading him to meet comrades such as Armando Borghi, president of the Unione Sindacale Italiana and director of Umanità Nova, Piero Valpreda, and Emanuele Visone. Together with Gigi Fedele, he re-established the anarchist group Napoli 2.
The secret to his longevity, he says, is walking a lot, eating little, and perhaps practicing a bit of anarchy — even at the table.
Interview by: Helga Sanità
Thanks to Zelda Giannini and Crescenzo Puca
Video by: Emilio Miranda
Video Editing by: Emilio Miranda
Document by: Helga Sanità
Subtitle ita/eng by:
Translation by: Helga Sanità
MedEatResarch – Center of Social Research on the Mediterranean Diet of the University of Naples Suor Orsola Benincasa, head by Marino Niola and Elisabetta Moro
Realized: 05/11/2025
