Beginning in the 1960s, Vivi Papi took numerous photographs of the best-known subjects of the Varese Baptistery at the request of publishing houses for art books. 
Then, in 1982, at the close of a photographic campaign on the Basilica of S. Vittore and the Baptistery to accompany the volume Nel cuore di Varese (edited by Enrico Cattaneo and Silvano Colombo, Varese, Lativa Editions, 1982), Vivi Papi took the initiative to photograph the frescoes preserved in the Baptistery in their entirety. This resulted in a set of about 300 6x7 cm color slides, some 24x36 mm and 10x12 cm slides, numerous other images on black/white film and on color negatives in various formats that constitute an almost complete documentation of the state of the building's paintings, on interior and exterior walls, in those years.
The documentation, which was never published, remained the property of the photographer who kept it on archives available to scholars and for any future publications. It was partly used for some local publications, including Il Battistero. Note storiche ed artistiche per la conoscenza dei monumenti varesini (artistic notes for the knowledge of the monuments of Varese), edited by Silvano Colombo and Gianfranco Garancini (Lativa editions, published for the Banca Popolare di Luino e Varese shortly after the restorations carried out in 1981).
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