The Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione (ICCD) opened in 1975 with the joint establishment of the Ministry for Heritage, Culture and Tourism (MiBACT). Falling whitin the remit of the Istituto Centrale per la Digitalizzazione del Patrimonio Culturale since 2020, its stated mission is to promote the aims of historico-cultural research and to facilitate and coordinate all activities pertaining to the listing and cataloguing of heritage assets and cultural property, except for bibliographic and archival resources. The Institute also devises new classifi cation and cataloguing methods, coordinating all research projects and programmes undertaken by local authorities.

The Institute bought this collection (Fondo Viggiano) on 14 December 1976 and it took just a little over a month for these works to be catalogued and listed in its own archive starting 29 January 1977. All 315 photographs, – all in a black & white format – are focused on the two Sassi districts, Barisano and Caveoso, as they would have appeared back in the early 1970s.