Italy was missing a national photography museum. Now it has one, in Florence, named after the Fratelli Alinari, the world-famous Florentine atelier. The formal name is in fact MNAF, Museo Nazionale Alinari della Fotografia, and was inaugurated in 2006._Situated in Piazza Santa Maria Novella in the historic Leopoldine complex, organised into 7 sections overflowing with rare images, instruments and precious period objects, the museum will also feature an amazing scientific innovation: photography that is visible' to the blind. The inaugural exhibition was dedicated to "Views of Italy 1841-1941: Masters of Italian Photography in the Alinari Collections", the first of many thematic shows that will periodically animate the life of the museum.