What happens when photography turns its gaze on photography itself? In L’oro del tempo, legendary Italian experimenter Mario Cresci (Chiavari, 1942) engages with the vast photographic collection of Rome’s ICCD – the Central Institute for Cataloging and Documentation – transforming historical material into a dialogue between memory and the present. During his residency, Cresci examined thousands of 19th-century prints and plates, focusing on two constellations of female imagery: the worldly portraits of Mario Nunes Vais, full of irony and spontaneity, and early photographs of Greco-Roman statuary. Through playful black-and-white manipulations, Cresci isolates, repeats, and overlays details—turning archival fragments into new visual compositions.Each image becomes living matter, open to new interpretation. The title, L’oro del tempo (The Gold of Time), recalls a phrase by André Breton: a search for what endures, precious and incorruptible like gold, through the flow of time.