The collection was purchased by the Institute of Art History during the work of the National Committee for the Celebrations of the 550th Anniversary of the Birth of Tullio Lombardo (2005-2008), in order to increase the photographic documentation in the photo library on the works of the Venetian sculptor. The photographs taken by photographer Mario Polesel were commissioned by the expert on Venetian sculpture Anne Markham Schulz for her studies on the Lombardo workshop.

Fully digitalised and accessible through the Atlante delle Sculture di Tullio Lombardo, the archive consists of 530 black and white photographs arranged within the filing cabinets according to the geographical location of the works.

Among the reproductions are a series of photographs of the reliefs of the so-called Camerini d'Alabastro, now in the Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, a wide-ranging photographic campaign on the Badoer Giustinian chapel in the church of San Francesco della Vigna, Venice, the subject of in-depth investigations by the scholar, and lastly close-up pictures of the sculptures on funerary monuments made by the workshop of the Lombardo, now kept together in the basilica of Santi Giovanni e Paolo, Venice.