Original cards for the 4th centenary stamp

Original cards for the 4th centenary stamp

In 1930 Poste Italiane of the then Kingdom of Italy issued two sets of stamps, one for ordinary mail and the other for air mail, to commemorate the fourth centenary of Francesco Ferrucci. Theordinary mail set includes five values. The first is 20 cents, a bright carmine colour, showing Ferrucci sky-blue), all with the same subject, showing Fabrizio Maramaldo stabbing to death the Florentine hero. The fifth stamp, whose value is 5+2 lire orange-coloured, shows an idealised portrait of Ferrucci (based on Mussolini's profile), with an indication of the year of death and of the 4th centenary. The specificity of this stamp is its nominal value of Lire 5 + 2 Lire surcharge. The surcharge, commonly used during that period, was often used to fund community services, restoration work and other projects. The 2 Lire, in this case, were paid to the Committee in charge of organising Ferrucci's funeral, thus contributing to finance the future Museo Ferrucciano. The airmail set includes three stamps with the same subject, namely Ferrucci with a hawk (or more probably an eagle). Their values are 50 Cents bright violet; 1 lira reddish brown; 5 + 2 lire mauve. The original cards, after completing the print matrices, were donated to the Museo Ferrucciano: in the past they have erroneously been attributed to Luigi Marchesi, in actual fact they were all drawn by Dino Tofani, except for the Ferrucci/Mussolini portrait in profile by Francesco Chiappelli. The latter card, featuring in the first catalogue of the Museum for the 1931 set-up, is no longer part of the collection; it might have gone lost during World War II or in the early Fifties, definitely before the set-up by Chiarelli in 1957.