In Italy, there is a certain combination of magnificence that any ordinary tourist can capture in a casual photo. It is the magnificent, frescoed interior inside a 15th-century palace set in a cobblestoned city surrounded by pine-laced countryside.

But rarely do photos capture all those multiple levels of ravishing beauty and arresting grandeur at once, layered and folded in upon themselves, the way art and genius so frequently are in Italy. Abelardo Morell’s photographs, on view at the Fitchburg Art Museum beginning Sept. 5 in “Abelardo Morell: Projecting Italy,” are the rare photographs that do just that.