Antique & Vintage Postcards

Richly detailed and razor-sharp, this black-and-white real-photograph-style card presents the magnificent 14th-century portal of Perugia's Palazzo dei Priori (here labeled "Palazzo Comunale") in close-up glory — concentric archivolts of twisted rope molding and carved vine scrolls frame a lunette bearing three solemn stone saints, while a pair of crouching lions guard the threshold below, their worn marble faces soft with centuries of Umbrian weather. The portal, attributed to the workshop active under the Perugian commune in the early 1300s, is one of the finest Gothic civic doorways in central Italy, and this card captures it with the kind of architectural fidelity that suggests a professional studio photograph rather than a tourist snap. Published by G. Tilli of Perugia (catalog no. 83962), the card dates to the 1920s based on stock weight, format, and the undivided-style simplicity of the verso — a clean collector's example never sent.