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Fiorenzo Longhi
AEROFILIA ITALIANA 1884-1920
Dai Pionieri dell'aviazione agli «Assi» della Grande Guerra
CATALOGO DEI TIMBRI DI REPARTO DELL'AVIAZIONE
Periodo pionieristico, Guerra italo-turca, Prima guerra mondiale

240 pp. - 607 colour ill. - 80 plates - format cm 21x29,7 - high quality glossy paper - hardbound - printed 2015
series "Handies"
POINT VALUATIONS
Italian text

ISBN: 978-88-96381-19-9
AEROFILIA ITALIANA 1884-1920
From the Pioneers of Aviation to the "Aces" of the Great War
CATALOGUE OF AIR FORCE POSTMARKS
Pioneering period, Italian-Turkish Conflict, First World War

The historical descriptive catalogue of Italian air force postmarks, with the foreword by Roberto Gentilli, aircraft historian.

In the centenary of Italy's entry into World War I, in 2015, a comprehensive study about all the known (at the moment) postmarks used by the different aviation units (1,423 postmarks listed, from forerunners to the end of World War I), with their rarity point evaluations, based on the frequency of each postmark, of its colour, and of the possible military postmark impressed on the item in question.

Within the Italian-Turkish Conflict, the leaflets in Arab language are listed, for the first time, with their translation into Italian, in addition to the messages dropped from airships to the Italian troops. They add an unreleased element to the history of aviation seen by an aerophilatelist and from the point of view of the history of military mail.

Much interest is given by the little known news about the presence of the Italian aviation units in Albania, Macedonia, Dalmatia, France, Cyrenaica and Tripolitania and of the allied aviation forces of France and Great Britain in Italy during World War I.

Each chapter is introduced by the history of aviation relevant to each period in question (forerunners, Italian-Turkish Conflict and World War I), from balloonists to airship crew members, to the aviators of the Italian Royal Army and of the Italian Royal Navy, and by the relocation of the units, within the historical period examined. That means a chronological history of the Italian military aviation and of the postmarks used from 1884 to 1920, from the pioneering period to the end of World War I (including the two following years for those units that were not disbanded immediately after the Armistice).

CONTENTS

Foreword by Roberto Gentilli
Author's note
How to use the catalogue
Valuations

THE PIONEERING PERIOD OF ITALIAN MILITARY AVIATION - 1884 - May 1915
History of Aviation
Catalogue of Postmarks

THE FIRST AIR CONFLICT IN THE WORLD: AVIATION IN THE ITALIAN-TURKISH CONFLICT - 1911-1913
History of Aviation
Catalogue of Postmarks

THE FIRST WORLD WAR - 1915-1918
History of Aviation
Catalogue of Postmarks

Bibliography
From the FOREWORD by Roberto Gentilli, aircraft historian

A current word in the academic field, interdisciplinarity means, according to the official definition, the net of relationships of complementarity, integration and interaction thanks to which different disciplines converge in common principles, tending to approach and unify the isolated parts and the fragmentary moments of the present specialized knowledge.
Fiorenzo Longhi, through his works, [...], has been able to lay a bridge of interdisciplinarity between philately and aeronautic historiography.

"Aerofilia" receives a series of fundamental points from military historiography: the deployment of divisions, news about the airplanes used [...] But, in turn, it offers much more, a series of documents that give confirmation of dates, places, people not by means of statistical summaries or reports, but through living, authentic documents, with dates and places certified by postmarks. [...]

Moreover, research in this volume is so accurate to go beyond the simple confirmation; it brings incontrovertible proof of presence, relocation, time, elements which had escaped aeronautic researchers' attention, thus creating problems and uncertainty, but also new fascinating perspectives.

Interdisciplinarity generated by different passions, but also by a common respect for accurate research and commitment for the preservation of historical memories, enriches us, in the hope that care given to every envelope, to every leaflet thrown from an airplane, to every newspaper sent via air mail, is diffused and of help in order to avoid the small tragedies that occur every time that young people throw their grandfather's old papers into a garbage bin.

But there is a last point that I wish to stress. In the Centenary of the Great War, commemorated even by Italy, a country unfocused, like just a few others, on its own history, the aeronautic historians who discover the world of "aerofilia" are brought back to the human aspect of the conflict.
It is not only a matter of airplanes, of kilos of bombs thrown, of identification numbers or of claiming of shooting down, the objects that its research tends to be restricted to, but of men. [...]

The value of research of "aerofilia", therefore, is not only the corroboration offered to the historical research, but the human dimension it enriches that of, and for which we thank Fiorenzo Longhi.

******************************
From the PREFACE by Fiorenzo Longhi

Different from what, already long ago, has been fulfilled in other countries and in spite of the historical interest of the connected events, a systematic study of the special postmarks impressed on mail and on official documents of the air force units has never been undertaken in Italy.
[...]

The air force handstamps are of various kind, generally in gum and impressed in violet ink.
More rarely in other colours (blue, red, green) or black.
The postmarks used on mail are sometimes the same as those impressed on the usual exchange of documents within the unit.
Other postmarks, instead, lead us to believe that Aviation units had an autonomous form of censorship [...]

The air force postmarks were impressed on mail just to complete, in a rapid, easy and clear way, the indication of the sender, but this kind of completion could have been done also manually.
Not only: even official documents usually lack of the air force or commander postmarks.
It is therefore probable that precise rules had not been dictated, by the supreme authorities, military or of the State, regarding types, sizes, or text, leaving every commander free to choose, and, very likely, the use of special postmarks on mail has been much less frequent in some units than in others.

Adding to all these considerations the long time passed, the fact that only a minimal part of the correspondence is generally kept and that the interest by Italian collectors in this field has always been rather lacking, we can be almost certain that the possibility of the integral completing of the postmarks of all the air force units of the Italian Royal Army and of the Italian Royal Navy [...] has to be considered, if not impossible, highly uncertain.

As regards the historical events of the units of Navy, Airship crew members and Balloonists, I had to draw hardly from various sources, sometimes contrasting, and so I decided to privilege only those few official documents that I have had the luck to trace in private and public archives.
Fiorenzo Longhi was born in Milan in 1938 and lives by Lake Maggiore.
After obtaining the scientific A levels, he graduates in Economics and Business at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan in 1966 and works as director in an engineering company for twenty years.
Since his childhood, he cultivates the hobby of philately and history, and afterwards he passes to the study of postal history in little known fields such as the first issues of the Ottoman Empire and of Ecuador, Italian air mail and the flights of Italian pilots abroad, creating, in the course of years, some important collections and one of the most complete libraries of philately, postal history and aeronautic history.
He is awarded the maximum rewards in the National and World competitive philatelic exhibitions (6 Large Gold Medals and numerous Grand Prix from 1976 to 1978).
Since 1979, he exhibits only in the Honour Class or upon invitation in National and International exhibitions.
He publishes numerous articles, chapters in specialized books, one book and two catalogues, always dealing with little known or unreleased subjects relevant to postal history and aeronautic history.
He is enrolled in the National Register of Philatelic Jury Members since 1982 and he is an International Philatelic Jury Member.
He is enrolled in the Golden Register of Italian Philately since 1979; since 1995, in the Register of Expert Witnesses of the Court in Verbania for Philately; since 1996, in the Philately Category, in the Expert Role of the Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Crafts and Agriculture in Verbano Cusio Ossola.
He is Life Member of the American Air Mail Society and member of the following Italian and foreign associations: A.I.E.P. International Association of Philatelic Experts (Italy, Air Mail - Ecuador, Air Mail); A.P.F.I.P Associazione Periti Filatelici Italiani Professionisti; Borsa Filatelica Nazionale; Federazione fra le Società Filateliche Italiane; Accademia Italiana di Filatelia e Storia Postale; Istituto di Studi Storici Postali; Unione Filatelica Lombarda; A.I.S.P. Associazione Italiana di Storia Postale; A.I.D.A. Associazione Italiana di Aerofilatelia; A.I.C.P.M. Associazione Italiana Collezionisti Posta Militare; Schweizerischer Aerophilatelisten-Verein; Cercle Aérophilatélique Français; British Air Mail Society; Nido delle Aquile Museo dell'Aria.
GOLD - PARIS-PHILEX 2016
19-22 maggio 2016

GOLD - ROSSICA 2016
20-22 maggio 2016

LARGE VERMEIL - EXPO 2019 c/o PHILTEMA
Cinisello Balsamo 11-13 ottobre 2019

LARGE VERMEIL - ITALIA 2018
23 novembre 2018

VERMEIL - FINLANDIA 2017
24-28 maggio 2017

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