Antique & Vintage Postcards

A bustling Edwardian street scene frozen in silver halide: Bologna's Piazza Nettuno hums with life as an open-bodied early automobile — likely a Fiat or STAR tourer, circa 1908–1912 — rumbles past Giambologna's magnificent Fontana del Nettuno (1566), the trident-bearing Neptune presiding imperiously over the square. A horse-drawn vehicle lingers in the middle distance while well-dressed Bolognesi — men in bowler hats, women in long skirts — animate the arcade-lined via beyond. To the right looms the crenellated medieval mass of the Palazzo Re Enzo, its stone battlements a reminder that this piazza has been the civic heart of Bologna since the commune's golden age. The tower visible center-left is almost certainly the Asinelli or one of its companions in the city's famous skyline of medieval towers. Published by the local house C.A.P.N. of Bologna and printed by the Ufficio Revisione Stampa of Milan (approval no. 427), this undivided-to-early-divided-back era card captures a precise transitional moment when horse power and horsepower coexisted on the same cobblestones — a snapshot that collectors of Italian topographicals, automotive history enthusiasts, and admirers of Renaissance public sculpture all compete for.