Eyes That Saw: the Pioneering Gaze of Maria Adriana Prolo

This article retraces the main tapes of the life and education of historian and archivist Maria Adriana Prolo, known above all for her decisive contribution to the foundation of the National Cinema Museum in Turin. Namely, it places emphasis on her lesser-known activity: a research on literature and women's culture in the Piedmont region and a history of Italian silent cinema. Of the latter, only the first volume was published in 1951 (and has now been republished in an anastatic reprint, available on-line for free), but it is sufficient to illustrate Prolo's original methodology, especially in relation to the breadth of sources used and the multidisciplinarity of her approach.