212 pp. - colour ill. - softtbound - printed 2021
Italian and English text

From the preface by Bruno Crevato-Selvaggi

The process of unification of the postal system came to an end with the law promulgated in 1862 which entered into force on 1st January 1863, the date when the Italian post office was born, and the authors did well to consider it as the beginning of their work.

Everything was different: for each destination, rules, rates, service possibilities, routes. A real jumble in which the sender could extricate himself only with the mediation of the postal service. And, in the materiality of postal documents, all this translated into three great semiotic categories that are recognizable today: postage stamps, postmarks, handwritten indications. A redundant and costly complexity for the sender of the time. Which, however, due to a fascinating reversal of occasions over time, today is transformed into a delight and an exciting field of investigation for the researcher: this is the topic of this volume.

The three categories of signs must be read together to arrive at the decoding of the document; the reading of each postal document (letters and other objects, whether or not encumbered by accessory services) must be preceded by a careful study of the regulations, of the international treaties, in short, of the rules, of which the document is the final outcome. An exquisitely historical way of proceeding, which the authors of this beautiful volume master with certain ease.

It has already been said about the upper chronological limit - 1st January 1863 - and the choice is very correct. The authors explain the lower one: that jumble mentioned above had a first moment of simplification thanks to the creation of the General Union of the Post that dictated the first rules. Then, on 1st April 1879, the General Union became "universal".