Antique & Vintage Postcards

A lone figure rests at the foot of an ornate iron well-head, dwarfed by the Renaissance arcades of the Canonica di San Biagio — a moment of quiet timelessness in one of Tuscany's most storied hilltowns. This blue-tinted photomechanical card, published by Edizioni Fumi of Montepulciano, presents the graceful two-story loggia of the canonica adjacent to Antonio da Sangallo the Elder's celebrated pilgrimage church, with the rocky hillside of Montepulciano rising dramatically behind. The sky-blue duotone printing lends the image an almost watercolor quality. Unused and unaddressed, the card retains a penciled dealer price of "25¢" in the upper left corner of the reverse — a charming relic of its passage through a mid-20th century postcard dealer's stock. A lovely piece of Tuscan architectural photography from the early picture-postcard era.