Antique & Vintage Postcards

The soaring Romanesque campanile of Santa Maria della Pieve looms over a narrow Aretine street in this crisp real-photo postcard, its multiple tiers of blind arcading stacked skyward like a medieval lesson in stone grammar. The church, begun in the 12th century, anchors Arezzo's Corso Italia, and the bell tower — nicknamed the "Tower of a Hundred Holes" for its many mullioned openings — is one of Tuscany's most distinctive landmarks. At street level, medieval and early Renaissance façades line the corso, their arcaded ground floors sheltering shops. The image has the intimate, documentary quality of a professional local photographer working in silver gelatin, catching the tower's rough texture and the deep shadow of the alley with fine tonal gradation. Published by Cav. F. Scheggi of Arezzo with the ETA (Ente per il Turismo e l'Arte) series mark and the notation Riproduzione interdetta (reproduction forbidden), this is a protected-image RPPC consistent with the 1920s–1930s Italian tourism publishing boom.