Who is Cufter?
Many are asking this on social networks, where accounts have appeared for some time that, at least in the name, ask themselves the same question: @whoiscufter.
A first answer is already in the bio: "I am a Trieste-born photographer from Trieste. I tell my life and Italy in the early twentieth century through my unpublished photos".
Almost every day Cufter - or rather, his alter ego of today - publishes photographs of Italy from the early years of the last century on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter: cities, monuments, museums, historical events in images taken by the mysterious photographer from Trieste, from the flood of Rome in 1915 to the launch of the battleship Viribus Unitis in 1911 in Trieste, from a glimpse of Aci Trezza to the transfer of the statue of Vittorio Emanuele II to the Vittoriano.
In the texts that accompany them, Cufter provides clues about his life ("I was born in Trieste in the second half of the 19th century"), at times he tests his followers by challenging them to recognize places or monuments immortalized 100 years ago with his Verascope Richard who describes it as a "very good robust machine with a magazine that allows you to automatically change plates".
But where do these unpublished photos of an Italy that no longer exists come from?
It is Cufter again who tells us: "My archive, which I thought would be lost after my death, has withstood the years, has been found and I can finally show it to you".
It also remains to reveal who is behind this original and fascinating project which - hopefully - will sooner or later remove the veil on Cufter's identity and history, and why not, even on his own.
