De Agostini, Alberto María

Italian photographer (1883-1960). Agostini arrived in Punta Arenas (Chile) in 1910. He quickly integrated as a missionary into the various works that the Salesian order had in the region, and stood out for his tireless work as an explorer, photographer, and documentarian. For over thirty years, he explored the mountainous regions of Tierra del Fuego and Southern Patagonia, venturing into the most remote corners of the region. Between 1913 and 1924, he carried out various expeditions through the Darwin Range, south of the island of Tierra del Fuego, and unsuccessfully attempted to climb Mount Sarmiento, the highest peak on the island. He also initiated the exploration of the Paine Massif. Between 1928 and 1932, Agostini explored the eastern side of the vast Southern Patagonian Ice Field and completed the first crossing of it. In the following years, his focus shifted to the Fitz-Roy Massif, northeast of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field, and Mount San Lorenzo, the second highest peak in Patagonia. In 1943, after several reconnaissance expeditions, Agostini successfully ascended San Lorenzo, which became a milestone in the history of mountaineering. After a long period of work in Italy, he returned to Patagonia in 1955 and, at the age of seventy-two, finally succeeded in climbing Mount Sarmiento.

Agostini's legacy can be appreciated through his publications, which introduced the Patagonian mountains to Europe, as well as through the photographic and film records he left of the region. His photographs stand out for their portrayal of indigenous peoples, providing valuable testimony of now extinct ethnic groups, and for documenting the early years of colonization in the Chilean Aysén region. At the same time, he was a pioneer in aerial photography in the Southern Patagonian Ice Field area, which has been of great importance for mapping the region, and in the use of color photography, employing the most modern technologies of the time. His films, on the other hand, constitute an invaluable legacy, as they are the first and only cinematic records of the Magellanic peoples and the region as a whole. Among these, the most important are "Tierra del Fuego" and "Tierras Magallánicas," which made Patagonia known worldwide.