Today on Monday Mysteries we look at a mystery man seen in a photograph from Verona, circa 1900.

It’s a photo that Chris and I ran across at a cafe bar where we often go for coffee in Verona. The cafe has many old photos on display, although they unfortunately have no information about them, including no information about who took them, or when they were taken.

In December it happened that we decided to take a seat in the cafe across from the bar, and so we spied a photo we hadn’t seen before. It’s a nice one of people striding across Piazza Bra in front of L’Arena.  Although the buildings are still much the same today as they were 100+ years ago, it seems to me from the clothing styles that the photo dates back to the late 1800s or early 1900s:

Framed old Piazza Bra photo, Verona

Now take a closer look at the man in the middle. Doesn’t he seem to have only one leg? But how is it possible that he’s walking so well on one leg? I mean, he’s got a walking stick jauntily carried in one hand, but it’s carried on the same side as his one leg, which wouldn’t really be helpful for walking, IMHO.

It’s possible, of course, that his other leg is merely obscured behind his visible leg from the photographer’s vantage point. However,  I think it’s more likely that some over-zealous photo “clean-up” could have taken place here. There could have been some mark on the original print near to the right of the man, and that blemish was removed digitally, with the man’s other leg getting accidentally taken out with it.

I was curious to see if I could find some other version of the photo on the Internet, and I did finally run across one other version of it here:

Vintage photo from Piazza Bra, Verona (from Verona Vintage archive)

The photo is on an archive of vintage photos from Verona, but unfortunately the site offers no more information about this print than cafe did about the one they had on display. However, we can now see that the original print is actually much wider that the one in the frame at the cafe. This alternate version also does in fact have one visible blemish on the coat of the man on the far right. However, even in this version the man in the middle is missing a leg. Odd.  So unfortunately we are left today with an incomplete solution to the missing leg mystery. I’ll have to keep you posted as to whether or not  I ever track down  any other versions of this print the next time we’re in Verona.

But I did have to laugh when I looked at my own photos of the frame print. After I first spotted the man with the missing leg in the framed photo, I whipped out my cell phone to snap a photo of it:

Now and then: Two “One-legged” men, Verona

Of course, there’s no mystery as to why the modern cafe patron seems to have only one leg: he managed to side-step into the frame just as I tried to take a picture of the old image in the frame, and only one part of him made it into my photo..

But taking this photo does tie in to  another mystery I always run across in Verona. Consider the following photo I took in December of Piazza Bra, L’Arena, and the Stella Cometa:

L’Arena, Piazza Bra and the Stella Cometa, Verona, December 2014

To get this wide-angle panorama, I waited to make sure that the area was fairly free of people. I had to wait quite a while, actually, until a young couple in particularly bright green coats finally decided to move away from the front of L’Arena on the right-hand side.  But finally, they moved, and the coast was clear.  I started my “sweep panorama” on the left, swinging slowly around with the camera to the right to get shot … and discovered that in the 3 or 4 seconds it took me to get from left-to-right, the folks with the tripod snuck in and set up.

Now, how is it possible that people can always manage to get in the way of where I want to take my photos, no matter how long I wait, or how long I plan?

Truly, that‘s a mystery.  😉