156 pp. - 232 colour ill. - format cm 24x21 - softbound - ed. 2011
series "History through documents"
Italian text

ALSO AS FREE BOOK (class B)

ITALY! WAKE UP!
A "BOOT" FULL OF POSTCARDS
all the symbols of our Homeland

PREFACE by Maurizio Pagliano

In a roundup of 232 pieces, from end-nineteenth century to present days, postcards reveal themselves as spy of Italian people collective imagination. An imagination that drove them to nationalistic fanaticisms, but sometimes to critical and not without irony visions too.

Like any other State, Italy is symbolized by its own flag but its three colours are enough too. A Monarchy until 1946, Italy was symbolized by the King and, perhaps, even just by some of the House of Savoy's attributes. Sole Country with an immediately recognizable shape, Italy coincides with it but the "boot" is often represented upside down. The Mother Country, like any allegoric device of academic matrix, shows Herself in ancient clothes that, depending on the circumstances, match Her austere image with others of mythological matrix, gathered from the Roman world or associated to the Founding Fathers of Risorgimento. It was during interventionism that Italy took young, attractive and even audacious likeness and motions. During the twenty years of Fascism, Italy coincided with the symbol of lictor's fasces and this was often replaced by the Duce's image.

In conclusion, Italy is so varied that suspect has arisen that its symbolic value is uncertain. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why the Mother Country was mocked, in recent years, together with all the other symbologies swinging between rhetoric and kitsch.

216 pp. - colour and b/w ill. - hardbound - printed 2013
Italian text

VESPA IN POSTCARDS

Introduction of postcards: Original Piaggio advertising (series of postcards illustrated by Franco Mosca, Vespa postcards kit, Piaggio calendars kit, vintage postcards, Piaggio museum Giovanni Alberto Agnelli, Corradino D'Ascanio) - Vespa Club of Italy, Vespa historical book (congresses, sports, Eurovespa, gatherings) - Other advertising - Humorous, Well-wishing, Artistic - Romantic - Landscape.

Particularly as regards the famous Italian motorcycle Vespa, postcards allow to reproduce, together with the unforgettable, several kinds of models, exported into 200 countries outside Italy in times, the lifestyle and the evolving of scooters on the roads. It is possible to conserve, by means of postcards, an amazing archive of images, drawings and photos offering an unforgettable memory of social life.

The work is considered a milestone of Vespa postcards, to be kept as essential reference point for all the collectors of this field.

208 pp. - colour and b/w ill. - softbound - printed 2019
Italian text

THE POSTCARDS OF THE GREAT WAR

An interesting compendium that traces the years of the Great War with an instrument that was enormously used at the time such as the postcard.

Every single work has been scientifically treated, revealing its main characteristics and, where possible, the author reports on the artists and the artist-soldiers who made them.

In addition, written testimonies, short ungrammatical texts, small masterpieces of writing and phrases escaped from censorship.

224 pp. - colour and b/w ill. - softbound - printed 2020

ITALIAN RISORGIMENTO THROUGH PICTURE POSTCARDS
ROME 1870

An illustrated book, written with careful and meticulous study, which traces the years of the Italian Risorgimento thanks to the communication entrusted to the images of postcards. Illustrated, commemorative and recalling postcards printed between end of Nineteenth and early Twentieth centuries, which narrate the Italian events that occurred between 1848 and 20 September 1870, the day of the capture of Rome.

The collection of postcards published in this volume is particularly important because it reveals the glorious events that concern Italy at the time of its formation and birth, from the days of the First Independence War (1848-1849), passing through the subsequent phases of Italian Risorgimento.

These postcards have as their subject the Army, which played a decisive role; it is therefore possible to retrace the heroic deeds of the Italian soldiers, understand their story and evolution and be aware of the role they played in the accomplishment of the Unification of Italy.