576 pp. - 36 pages with colour plates - format cm 17x24 - softbound - printed 2011
series «Handies»
Italian text

ALSO AS FREE BOOK (class C)

POSTAL RELATIONS OF ITALY IN 1800s
ITALY - FRANCE
Postal conventions and rates
Annotated list of mail in the philatelic period

This is the second volume of a series devoted to postal relations between Italy and foreign countries during the XIX century, specifically from 1850 to 1875, a quarter of century from the introduction of postage stamps in Italy to the creation of the Universal Postal Union. It is a key period, as there was a great progress in communications and the many postal conventions signed led to the unitary rate of 1875.

The work considers the whole XIX century, because it is after Napoleon's fall and the position of Italy decided by the Congress of Vienna that the idea of a renewal of postal services arose. There were the first bilateral postal conventions intended to make the forwarding of mail between the states easier, safer, and cheaper for users.

Italian postal history has been progressing during last decades, above all the study of postal conventions and rates of Italian Ancient States, Kingdom and Republic. A bit less studied the relations with foreign countries which were based - as it is known - on bilateral conventions and agreements, and sometimes on implied consent or on usual temporary procedures.

The aim of this volume, of the previous one about relations between Italy and Switzerland, and of the following ones, is that of giving a uniform picture of known or never published details relevant to conventions and rates in postal communications between Italy and foreign countries in the XIX century.

Particular attention has been given to the annotated list of mail known in the philatelic period: information comes from auction catalogues, price lists, collections and different publications. This is not a comprehensive list; however, through the description of each item, accompanied by philatelic notes, routes, postmarks and rates, collectors can have all the details relevant to the mail under examination. Moreover, the list is very useful from a statistical point of view: it illustrates postal communications between each Italian state and foreign countries, in this specific volume between each Italian state and France.

Some particularly important letters and postal documents have been selected and reproduced in colour in the tables at the beginning of the book, in order to give a picture of mail under examination.

360 pp. - more than 260 colour ill. - hardbound - printed 2017
French and English text

THE FRANCO-SARDINIAN ROUTE IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
Conventions, regulations, tariffs
1818-1851

In 1815, under the Restoration, France has found again the frontiers of 1790.
From 1814, the Kingdom of Sardinia (Savoy, Piedmont and Isle of Sardinia) is restored and enlarged in 1815 with the annexation of the ancient Republic in Genoa. The Principality of Monaco passes under the Sardinian protectorate.

The work studies the postal relationships between the two countries and the whole transit that passes through this important axle in Europe.
At that time, Italy is divided into nine sovereign states and one province of the Austrian Empire: the Kingdom of Lombardy - Venetia. Each one has its postal practices, its currency, its units of weight, its postal rates.
They are all described with precision in the enclosures that also show the conventions, the agreements, the ordinances, the postal circulars and the rates that discipline these relationships.

The text explains in detail most of the casuistries that may be met, with the models of franking and taxation. It contains the reproduction of more than 260 letters, from the most common to the rarest, all meticulously described.