A plume of ash and smoke boils upward from the raw crater of Mount Vesuvius in this dramatic close-up photograph — the kind of image that must have felt almost prophetically violent to anyone who bought it during the war years in which it was printed, with Italy itself convulsing under Allied bombing and German occupation. Issued under the authorization of the Fascist-era Ministero della Cultura Popolare on August 22, 1942 (dated "A. XXI" in the Fascist calendar — Year 21 of the regime), this unused card from publisher Alterocca of Terni captures Vesuvius in one of its frequent minor eruptive phases, the crater walls glowing and steaming against a pale sky. It is a rare document of both natural history and the cultural machinery of Mussolini's Italy.