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The 700th commemorative year of Dante’s death began on 25 March 2021, the day of the Annunciation of the Lord, of the creation of the world, the New Year’s Day in old Florence according to ab Incarnatione. On 25 March 2021, Holy Father Francis published the apostolic letter Candor Lucis Aeternae solemnly uniting the voice of the catholic church with the chorus of all the ones honoring the memory of the illustrious poet Dante Alighieri. In professional fraternity the voices of the guild colleagues join in, physicians and pharmacists, descendants of those in Arte dei Medici e degli Speziali, which proudly included among their members Dante Alighieri, at the crossing between the 13th and 14th centuries.

Photography is a major component of present art. It has applications in arts, in sciences and mainly health sciences, in social interaction. The evolution of photography since its advent 200 years ago relied and was dependent on the knowledge of chemistry. This is a review of the chemical techniques used in the recording and reproduction of photographs and of its applications. In the last two centuries, numerous chemical substances: inorganic, organic and polymeric, influenced the aspect and quality of the photographic techniques and of photographs. Teaching photography requires knowledge of chemistry, while chemistry education needs knowledge of esthetics as offered by photography.