Following American Chrome’s great success, Stefano Torrione introduces his latest book: “Intra Montes”.

What could be better than the author himself describing his own work?

We’d like to thank him for his kind availability and hand the floor to him:

“I started thinking about the Intra Montes project in 2018, while I was working on a photoshoot for National Geographic Italia on the archeological sites in Valle d’Aosta – also known as the Rome of the Alps.

I was born in Aosta, between the magnificent Arch of August (covered in snow as you can see in the pictures) and Porta Pretoria, I’m no stranger to the Roman ruins scattered all around my mountain region.

However, going back to these ancient remains with my camera struck me with beauty, greatness and glory of places such as the Arch of August, the Forensic Cryptoporticus and the aqueduct of Pont d’Aël, among others. Historic and fascinating places which haven’t been disclosed to a wider audience yet.

Not even to the groups of tourists that crowd the ski slopes in Valle D’Aosta who, nevertheless, never went for a stroll around the ancient walls of the Roman city.

That’s the reason why I decided to create an open-air exhibition in via Dante, in Milan, where I displayed 30 large-scale images highlighting the wonders of the place I was born.

These images, placed on moving structures, on the centrally-located pedestrian street, created a large fresco, as ancient Roman locations were placed right next to different monuments from past and future ages, such as middle-aged castles.

When photographing these places, my attempt was to show the sites in particular moments when the ancient stones were crossed from the human presence and marked from the evidence of culture and traditions.

The exhibition was created thanks to the support of Valle d’Aosta region under the leadership of Daria Jorioz and lasted a whole month back in September 2020. As soon as the exhibition was over, I was sad at the idea that the 30 images I always looked at as “tableaux” would end up in a storage room.

I started therefore to imagine collecting this huge work in a book, as books allow photos a way longer life, compared to an exhibition or an online webinar – which have become popular lately.

I dove into my large digital archive with plenty of images and I built the architecture of the new book – if I am allowed to say it, because nothing happens to be made up nowadays.

The new book had to show the artistic and pictorial approach of my work, consisting of 84 photographs where every single image had to be complete, emblematic of the place, I’d dare to say final. Printer Trento team had my back and assisted me throughout the whole project, discussing together the best solutions to adhere to my ideas in terms of paper, volume, inks.

And here it is Intra Montes, a book where the type of photographs, the printing quality and the final product perfectly enhance the initial idea at the very core of the story: to make a great Tribute to Valle d’Aosta.”