Beniamino Facchinelli, born in 1839 in the Habsburg city of Trento, was a photographer. He left for Egypt, where his presence is attested to in December 1876 (Bideault, 2017, p. 11). He moved several times in Cairo, but always to the same central district on the edge of the ancient city. In 1879 he was working for the Egyptian General Staff and, in 1880 he was listed as Chief Photographer of the General Staff to the Viceroy of Egypt. In the same year he was appointed Knight of the Order of the Crown of Italy. His links with the Italian community in Cairo led him to be chosen as a reporter for the trip that the Crown Prince of Italy, the future Victor-Emmanuel III, made to the Middle East in 1887.
Facchinelli created a vast photographic documentation of Cairo’s streets, monuments and landscapes. Many of them were commissioned by the French Egyptologist Arthur Rhoné (1836–1910) and later by the Comité de Conservation des Monuments de l’Art Arabe. Facchinelli died on 18 July 1895 in Cairo, aged 56 (Bideault, 2017, p. 11–13).

Bideault, M. (2017). Une biographie en pointillés. In Le Caire sur le vif. Beniamino Facchinelli photographe (1875-1895). Publications de l’Institut national d’histoire de l’art. https://doi.org/10.4000/books.inha.7776

Raccolta artistica di fotografie sull'architettura araba, ornati ecc. dal XIIº al XIIIº secolo fotografia italiana del Cav. B. Facchinelli, Cairo (Egitto)(1887). Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Institut national d’histoire de l’art, collections Jacques Doucet, Fol Phot 065.

Volait, M. et al. (2017). Le Caire sur le vif. Beniamino Facchinelli photographe (1875–1895). Paris: Publications de l’Institut national d’histoire de l’art, 2017.