276 pp. - colour ill. - softbound - printed 2014
Italian text

THE RULE OF POSTAGE STAMPS
Italian writers in philately

The book dissects in a monographic and comprehensive way the connections between Italian writers and philately: the Author, in his extensive treatment, has followed the way how Italian writers were represented on postage stamps, that thus become a precious means for disseminating information and culture.
He follows in detail the thread of the philatelic issues of traditional Italian nations in the Italian area, namely Italy, San Marino and Vatican City, dividing the treatment into 14 dense chapters.
The first author celebrated in philately was Dante Alighieri, in 1921, followed by Alessandro Manzoni, two years later. Since then, dozen writers have been impressed in a postage stamp. They often are classic authors, but in recent decades the faces and writings of the most important authors of the XXth century have found a place too, Primo Levi to Tomasi di Lampedusa, Montale to Quasimodo.
The book also talks about not Italian writers (Latin and foreign). There are, then, guessable connections to history, since postage stamps also contain a political message, in a more or less evident way, and reflect the changes in habits (think, for example, about the role of women in postage stamps, regarding which the author writes persuasive and informed pages).
159 colour postage stamps of writers are displayed in the appendix to the book, so to have an immediate visual feedback.