A family of Italian origin that came to the Holy Land with the Crusades. Boulos Meo opened a shop near the Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem in 1872, supplying souvenirs, photographs and postcards to an ever-increasing number of tourists. Books, pairing photographs of sacred places with collages of dried flowers from the sites on the facing pages, were popular in the late 19th century. Bound in olive wood, a material often used by the local craftsmen to make mementos, the albums combined views of the Holy Land with tangible elements of the earth. The Boulos Meo business later served as a cafe and a source for antiquities and Persian rugs, remaining open until 1994.