Paolo Ventura, La Gamba Ritrovata, 2020

Some years ago, I was in Montebello della Battaglia, where on May 20, 1859, the Piedmont-Sardinia army allied with the French defeated the Austrian army, forcing it back beyond the Po river.
I wanted to photograph the ossuary that stands at the border of the battlefield. The custodian told me that, a few days before, a farmer had found the leg of a soldier.
He showed me the bones, tibia and fibula, the foot still wearing the shoe of a Piedmont soldier, the ankle wrapped with a gaiter. I photographed it.
A few months later, at a small market, I found a photograph that portrayed a young Piedmont army official who, leaning against a friend of his, displayed the loss of his right leg. On the back of the photograph, someone had written “the hero of Montebello.” – Paolo Ventura

A project in collaboration with the ICCD Archives, the photograph of a leg skeleton is placed side by side with the image of a legless officer found by browsing through the photo albums of an antique dealer. Thus, through rigorous documentation work, a curious mise-en-scene was born.