The archive was assembled by Rodolfo Pallucchini (1908 - 1989), director of the Institute of Art History from 1972 to 1989 and considered the greatest 20th-century Veneto art historian.

Professor of the history of modern art, first in Bologna (1950) and then in Padua (1956-1979), where his long teaching career gave rise to a prestigious school, in 1972 he was appointed director of the Fondazione Cini Institute of Art, which eventually received his rich photo library in 1989.

His collection of over 47,000 photographs provides extraordinary documentation on at least five centuries of Venetian painting and other art works. The scholar's greatest resource, it also offers the opportunity to understand his working method and attributional criteria. The photos are kept in over two hundred boxes, arranged chronologically and alphabetically by artist, sometimes with autograph notes on the back stating the location of the work, its provenance and alternative attributions.
The around 50,000 reproductions are often accompanied by relevant correspondence, useful in reconstructing the scholar's connoisseurship. Much of the material preserved in the collection was the documentary basis for his seminal monographic studies on Venetian painting of the 14th, 15th, 17th and 18th centuries and all his most important publications.

The archive also includes handwritten annotations and proofs for his publications, as well as a considerable number of photographs of 20th-century works from the period when he was involved in organising the Venice Biennale (1948-1954).

As part of the activities promoted by the Regional Committee for the Celebrations of the Centenary of the Birth of Rodolfo Pallucchini, the collection was digitised and catalogued: at present some of the materials can be consulted online, such as the photographic documentation for art of the 14th and 17th centuries.