Alessandro Duroni, optician and owner, since 1837, of a shop for physics, optics and chemistry instruments in the De Cristoforis gallery in Milan, was the author of the first daguerreotypes in Lombardy, celebrated by the newspapers of the time. He made frequent trips abroad for professional reasons and in 1848 he opened a daguerreotype factory in Milan, with a portrait studio, in the then Corso Francesco (later Corso Vittorio Emanuele II). Duroni's atelier became one of the most renowned portrait studios of the peninsula and in it the main protagonists of Italian history were portrayed, including Giuseppe Garibaldi, Nino Bixio, Camillo Benso count of Cavour, Carlo Cattaneo, King Vittorio Emanuele II . Of the latter Duroni, now adorned with the title of Photographer of His Majesty the King of Italy, he painted a full-length portrait that earned him a medal at the Italian National Exhibition of 1861. Among his most valuable daguerreotypes, the stereoscopic one should be noted and colored by hand that portrays the countess Giuseppina Durini Casati, mother of the painter Alessandro Durini.