Antique & Vintage Postcards

A vaulted loggia stretches into shadow at Villa La Balze in Fiesole, its repeating stone arches and slender columns framing large ceramic urns and sparse antique chairs — an interior of spare Tuscan elegance photographed in rich silver-gelatin tones that feel almost architectural in their precision. Villa La Balze, perched above Florence on the Fiesole hillside, was designed in 1909 by English architect Cecil Pinsent for American philosopher Charles Strong, and later became part of Georgetown University's study-abroad program. This real-photo postcard — printed on silver-gelatin paper with a crisp white border — captures the villa's distinctive vaulted ground-floor passageway, likely made for private distribution to guests or visiting scholars in the early twentieth century. The reverse is hand-inscribed "Villa La Balze, Fiesole, Florence." in cursive script; the card is otherwise unused, with a penciled "25" in the stamp box corner.