Born in 1975, Manfredi Gioacchini picked up his first camera at 15. Four years later, he left his native Rome to attend university in London, and then it was on to America, where he found work as a photographer in New York City and Los Angeles; his subjects were architecture and nature, and he took portraits. Gioacchini was not interested in his home country. “I would hardly ever return to Italy,” he says.
Five years ago, however, Gioacchini did return to Italy—specifically, to his family’s country house, in Bagnoregio. It was the spring of 2020, and he would quarantine there during the early months of the coronavirus pandemic.