The collection consists of radiographic plates of paintings in major Italian and European art collections. The radiographs were made in the 1960s and ‘70s by the Milanese radiologist Ludovico Mucchi (1904-1983), son of the painter and art historian Anton Maria Mucchi.

When Ludovico Mucchi died in 1983, his wife Costanza Piccolomini donated the radiographs left in their Florentine home to the Fondazione Giorgio Cini, because of the nature of Ludovico Mucchi's main study interests (18th-century Venetian painting) and his relationship with the Venetian institution.

The collection consists of 934 radiographic plates, 869 inverse images, 559 prints of the radiographic images and 22 photographs of 14th to 16th-century paintings from the Venetian, Tuscan and Lombard schools and 18th-century paintings by Pietro Longhi, Canaletto, Bellotto, Francesco Guardi and Michele Marieschi analysed by Mucchi. Each photograph is kept in an envelope with all the documents related to the painting in question. The works have been chronologically divided into two groups: 14th-16th century and 18th century. Within the two chronological groups the works have been divded by author and arranged alphabetically. The photographic collection includes Mucchi's handwritten notes and radiograph reports, inserted in the envelopes containing the radiographic materials.

The collection held by the Fondazione Giorgio Cini is one of the key parts of Mucchi's legacy, whose full significance can only be grasped by considering the overall project of the "International Radiographic Archive" based on new systematic criteria - a pioneering undertaking pursued by the Milanese radiologist throughout his life.