Filoteo Alberini (14 March 1865 – 12 April 1937) was an Italian

inventor An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an ...

movie director A film director controls a film's artistic and dramatic aspects and visualizes the screenplay (or script) while guiding the film crew and actors in the fulfilment of that vision. The director has a key role in choosing the cast members, pr ...

, and one of the earliest pioneers of cinema.

Biography

Born in

Orte Orte is a town, ''comune'', former Catholic bishopric and Latin titular see in the province of Viterbo, in the central Italian region of Lazio, located about north of Rome and about east of Viterbo. Geography Orte is situated in the Tiber vall ...

, he began working as a handyman in his native town and, after completing the compulsory military service at the Military Engineers Department, he was hired at the Military Geographical Institute of

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...

. In 1894, inspired by

Thomas Edison Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventio ...

kinetoscope The Kinetoscope is an precursors of film, early motion picture exhibition device, designed for films to be viewed by one person at a time through a peephole viewer window. The Kinetoscope was not a movie projector, but it introduced the basic ...

(a "peepshow" machine which allowed to see moving frames through a lens), he patented his "

kinetograph The Kinetoscope is an early motion picture exhibition device, designed for films to be viewed by one person at a time through a peephole viewer window. The Kinetoscope was not a movie projector, but it introduced the basic approach that would ...

", a shooting and projecting device which could show moving images to multiple people simultaneously not unlike that of the

Lumière brothers Lumière is French for 'light'. Lumiere, Lumière or Lumieres may refer to: * Lumières, the philosophical movement in the Age of Enlightenment People *Auguste and Louis Lumière, French pioneers in film-making Film and TV * Institut Lumière, ...

. Alberini built the kinetograph one year before the cinématograph invented by the Lumière brothers who, in turn, borrowed and expanded the idea for such a device from

Léon Bouly Léon Guillaume Bouly (; 1872–1932) was a French inventor who created the word cinematograph. Cinematograph After devising chronophotography devices, Bouly applied a patent on a reversible device of photography and optics for the analysis and ...

. Due to a bureaucratic hitch, the Ministry of Industry and Commerce issued Alberini's patent (No. 245032) one year after Alberini's request, specifically in 1895, in the same year when the Lumières projected for the first time ''

Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory ''Workers Leaving The Lumière Factory in Lyon'' (french: La Sortie de l'Usine Lumière à Lyon), also known as ''Employees Leaving the Lumière Factory'' and ''Exiting the Factory,'' is an 1895 French short black-and-white silent documenta ...

''. In the ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' obituary, Filoteo Alberini is recognised as the inventor of motion pictures devices In 1899, Alberini opens the first Italian movie theatre in

. In 1904, he opens 'Cinema Moderno', the first movie theatre in

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

. Fascinated by his new invention and by the new art form, in 1904 Alberini and his friend Dante Santoni founded the Alberini and Santoni First Italian Manufacturing Company, renamed

Cines The Società Italiana Cines (''Italian Cines Company'') is a film company specializing in production and distribution of films. The company was founded on 1 April 1906. A major force in the European film industry before the First World War, the c ...

in 1906. Cines was based in Rome. In 1905 he directs ''

La presa di Roma ''La presa di Roma'', also known as ''La breccia di Porta Pia'' or ''Bandiera bianca'', and distributed in English-speaking countries under the title ''The Capture of Roma'' is a 1905 Italian short black-and-white silent film directed by Filoteo ...

''. The film was 250 meters long (against the average length of that time of 60 meters) and cost 500 lire. The film was divided into seven scenes, each representing some of the episodes of the

capture of Rome The Capture of Rome ( it, Presa di Roma) on 20 September 1870 was the final event of the unification of Italy (''Risorgimento''), marking both the final defeat of the Papal States under Pope Pius IX and the unification of the Italian Peninsula ...

, occurred on 20 September 1870, which was the final event of the long process of

Italian unification The unification of Italy ( it, Unità d'Italia ), also known as the ''Risorgimento'' (, ; ), was the 19th-century political and social movement that resulted in the consolidation of different states of the Italian Peninsula into a single ...

. The seven scenes are: * 1. The battle of

Ponte Milvio The Milvian (or Mulvian) Bridge ( it, Ponte Milvio or ; la, Pons Milvius or ) is a bridge over the Tiber in northern Rome, Italy. It was an economically and strategically important bridge in the era of the Roman Empire and was the site of the f ...

* 2. The rejection of surrender by the pontifical general

Hermann Kanzler Hermann Kanzler (28 March 1822, Weingarten, Grand Duchy of Baden – 6 January 1888, Rome, Kingdom of Italy) was a German general who commanded the Army of the Papal States and was the arms minister during the reign of Pope Pius IX. He led Pa ...

* 3. The arrival of the

Bersaglieri The Bersaglieri, singular Bersagliere, (, "sharpshooter") are a troop of marksmen in the Italian Army's infantry corps. They were originally created by General Alessandro La Marmora on 18 June 1836 to serve in the Royal Sardinian Army, which ...

* 4. The

breach of Porta Pia The Capture of Rome ( it, Presa di Roma) on 20 September 1870 was the final event of the unification of Italy (''Risorgimento''), marking both the final defeat of the Papal States under Pope Pius IX and the unification of the Italian Peninsula ...

* 5. The entrance of the Bersaglieri in the City * 6. The surrender of

Pope Pius IX Pope Pius IX ( it, Pio IX, ''Pio Nono''; born Giovanni Maria Mastai Ferretti; 13 May 1792 – 7 February 1878) was head of the Catholic Church from 1846 to 1878, the longest verified papal reign. He was notable for convoking the First Vatican ...

with the display of the white flag on the

St. Peter's Basilica The Papal Basilica of Saint Peter in the Vatican ( it, Basilica Papale di San Pietro in Vaticano), or simply Saint Peter's Basilica ( la, Basilica Sancti Petri), is a church built in the Renaissance style located in Vatican City, the papal e ...

* 7. The celebrations of Italian troops. Among Alberini's other inventions there were the 'cinepanoramic' (a revolving lens system that expands the image on the screen, an ancestor of today's

Vistavision VistaVision is a higher resolution, widescreen variant of the 35 mm motion picture film format which was created by engineers at Paramount Pictures in 1954. Paramount never used anamorphic processes such as 2.55: 1, CinemaScope but refi ...

), the 'cineclock' (a round film disk with many frames that could be viewed with a luminaire manual), and a device to be applied to cameras, a forerunner of sequential shooting. He died in

Selected filmography

Director

* ''La Malia dell'oro'' (1905) * ''Un Colloquio disturbato'' (1905) * ''Ginnastica moderna'' (1905) * ''La Presa di Roma'' (1905) * ''Nell'assenza dei padroni'' (1905) * ''Vendetta di suonatori'' (1906) * ''Pierrot innamorato'' (1906) * ''La Merca del bestiame nell'agro romano'' (1906) * ''Concorso ippico'' (1906) * ''La Cascata delle Marmore presso Terni'' (1906) * ''L'Albero di Natale'' (1906) * ''Visita dei reali di Grecia a Roma'' (1906) * ''Inaugurazione dell'Esposizione di Catania'' (1907)

Cinematographer

* ''

'' (1905) * ''Tom Butler'' (1906) * ''Pranzo provvidenziale'' (1906) * ''La pila elettrica'' (1906) * '' La gitana'' (1906) * ''Dopo un veglione'' (1906) * ''Cuore e patria'' (1906) * ''La confessione per telefono'' (1906) * ''Nozze tragiche'' (1906) * ''Il dessert di Lulù'' (1906) * ''Il ratto di una sposa in bicicletta'' (1906) * ''Le ore di una mondana'' (1906) * ''Il pompiere di servizio'' (1906) * ''Onore rusticano'' (1906) * ''Otello'' (1906) * ''Triste giovinezza '' (1907) * ''Povera madre!'' (1909) * ''Don Carlos'' (1909) * ''Messalina'' (1910) * ''Dramma alla frontiera'' (1910)

Producer

* ''Raffaello e la Fornarina'' (1907) * ''Siegfried'' (1909) * ''Il piccolo garibaldino'' (1909) * ''Parsifal'' (1909) * ''Lo stretto di Messina'' (1909) * ''

Brutus Marcus Junius Brutus (; ; 85 BC – 23 October 42 BC), often referred to simply as Brutus, was a Roman politician, orator, and the most famous of the assassins of Julius Caesar. After being adopted by a relative, he used the name Quintus Serv ...

'' (1911)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Alberini, Filoteo 1865 births 1937 deaths 20th-century Italian people Italian cinematographers Italian film directors Italian film producers Italian theatre directors 19th-century Italian inventors Silent film directors Cinema pioneers People from the Province of Viterbo