IN 1796 Quatremère de Quincy, a writer and architectural theorist, described Italy as "a general museum, a warehouse of all objects pertaining to the study of the arts." Quatremère was writing during the rise of modern tourism, and Italy's ancient riches have meant his characterisation stuck: to this day Sicily is advertised by travel agencies as "a 10,000-square-mile museum". But, as Sicilians all too bitterly know, Italy is not just a sunny place where the treasures of the past are calmly displayed. As hordes of tourists descended on the country this summer, an exhibition of contemporary photography at Rome’s MAXXI gallery, "Extraordinary Visions: Italia ci guarda", opened to offer an alternative to this foreign conception of Italy. The mostly Italian photographers on display show the complicated, contradictory and occasionally violent reality of life on the peninsula beyond Roman ruins and Renaissance art.
