The Publifoto Agency was founded in Milan in 1937 by Vincenzo Carrese (b. Castellammare di Stabbia 20 March 1910 – d. Milan 18 October 1981). Carrese was the Italian representative of Wide World Photos and of the photographic agency of the New York Times from 1927 and of the 'English Keystone’ from 1929.

A few years earlier he had been called to run the internal photographic service of Corriere della Sera. He then set up his own business with photographers employed by him. He set up the "Photo Agency Keystone of Carrese Vincenzo" in November 1937. The agency changed its name to "Publifoto, photographs to be published" on 1 January 1939. The large group of photographers available night and day allowed Carrese to document any type of event and to promptly supply news, sports and current affairs photographs to the press. The agency’s internal printing laboratory enabled him to have prints made up quickly.

Soon, Carrese opened a Publifoto branch in Rome, directed by his brother Carlo. However, it was only after the war that he invested in other (Turin, Naples, Palermo and Genoa). Throughout its history, the Publifoto agency continued to represent the major photojournalistic agencies in the world and, after the war, it also began to collaborate with L'Unità, albeit for a short period, with L'Europeo, with the journalistic Ansa and with Il Giorno. In 1981 Carrese died suddenly: Publifoto Notizie continued under the direction of his children Ferdinando and Manuela and from February 1985 took the name of Publifoto Notizie di Ferdinando Carrese & C. snc

The Publifoto Archive was then sold to De Benedetti's Olivetti, only to be purchased in 1997 by the “Fotocronache Olympia SpA” agency. In 2015 it was purchased by Intesa Sanpaolo to enhance it as a national cultural asset.

Most of the photographs produced by the photographers employed by Publifoto concern the various production sectors in which Publifoto itself was divided: Publifoto News, therefore news services, Sport, and Commercial and Industrial.