A well-dressed Edwardian woman holds a pink parasol aloft as pigeons swirl at her feet in the dazzling open expanse of Venice's Piazza San Marco — a scene so alive with colour and motion it practically rustles. The chromolithograph captures the Torre dell'Orologio (Clock Tower) at left, its blue astronomical dial gleaming, while the gilded Gothic façade of the Basilica di San Marco fills the right background. A child in a straw hat crouches to scatter grain, and dozens of colombi (pigeons) crowd the flagstones in a flurry of wings. The three tall flagpole bases, cast in ornate bronze, anchor the foreground composition. Feeding the famous pigeons of San Marco was a beloved tourist ritual from the mid-1800s through the early 20th century; the birds were only officially banned in 2008. Published by the Venetian house of Ferd. Bobbato, this undivided-back card dates to the earliest years of Italian postcard publishing, circa 1900–1905, when lithographic colour work of this quality was state-of-the-art.