 
Born in Arquata Scrivia, province of Alessandria, in 1921. First became involved with photography in 1945,
immediately after the war, looking for, restoring and reproducing images of the war (especially of nazi-fascist crimes)
for the inter-allied commission in charge of gathering documentary evidence for the war crimes trial.
In these years he founded what is now the National Historical Photo Library, which bears his name.
He then worked as a reporter, first of all for the daily l'Unità, and then for the illustrated weeklies
Lavoro and Vie Nuove, whilst continuing with his research into photography and gradually extending
it to the entire historical cycle of the use and consumption of the optical-mechanical image.
After 1957 and during the 60s he worked as a specialist ethnographic photographer with Ernesto
de Martino (University of Sassari), Tullio Seppilli (University of Perugia) and Diego Carpitella
(Ethnomusical Institute of the Santa Cecilia Academy in Rome).
Since 1962, together with his wife Luciana Barbarino, who then continued to work alongside him in all
the activities of the National Historical Photo Library, he has been dedicating himself entirely to photography.
Since then, his work has no longer been just historical research and the organisation of exhibitions, but has
transformed into the actual practice: journalism photography, reproduction of art, industrial, creative, etc.
He is also participating in the production of the monumental encyclopaedia Universo e Le Muse,
to which he has contributed a number of highly significant images for iconographic research.
He works with numerous specialist magazines, has been technology editor of Popular Photography
Italiana for several years and is one of the founders and co-editors of the periodicals Photo 13,
Phototeca, Index, Storia Infame..., published in succession from 1969 to 1989 from the editorial office
of the National Historical Photo Library.
Since 1984 he has been contributing to
Progresso Fotografico (now PC Photo) with the books column.
Author of countless books, articles, essays and writings, including The Italian Risorgimento in photographic records,
Colour in photography, Photography text book for 1st year primary school, Social history of photography, Wanted!,
Photography: a machine for teaching, Photography from its origins ... to photoengraving.
In the decade 1977-87 he worked as a photography consultant and held courses for the government-run CTU
(University Television Centre) in Milan, directed by Prof. Giovanni Degli Antoni and subsequently Dr. Patrizia Ghislandi.
In 1979 he became co-founder of the Foto/gram group, of which he is still director and leading light; in the following
five years this experimental group of teachers and students held innovative courses on the use of photography in
teaching in many Italian schools: it published three user manuals for teachers and created the "Tri-camera
Obscura", a camera for teaching photography.
In this group were the sisters Elena and Patrizia Piccini, then students, who, in parallel with the
experimental teaching activities, started getting involved with the Photo Library: it was then that the long and
constant working relationship began which led to them becoming the current coordinators of the Archive.
In the years to follow, Gilardi organised the production of a number of e-books:
Photography course hypothesis and the Giotto project on videodisk, one of the first interactive courses
made in Italy; he continued with the production of further works on CD ROM, the most significant of these
being Museum of Museums of Italian Renaissance Art made in Japan for the FM Towns platform.
Amongst the major works are La Gioconda di Lvov, an itinerant photo-literary exhibition (interactive
images-text) of spontaneous images and writings on the Extermination, devised together with a like-minded group of
scholars and War Resistance Institutes.
A number of years ago he moved to his current home in the Piedmont,
in his parents' village of origin, from where, despite its isolated location, he still contributes very actively to
the world of visual communication via the Internet, of which he is a frequent user. His work as a historian of image
fabrication procedures goes on, testing out the new digital reproduction techniques in person, this time as an
artist. In these years he has animated the exhibition area of Acqui Terme Public Library,
"The book factory" with the staging of six-monthly educational-art exhibitions, up until the end
of 2004; he is currently conducting personal research into the artistic implications of digital photography
techniques, with a daily diary circulated on his Amici mailing list.
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