Postal History

When at the end of the 80s I came closer to the study of the so-called "marques de passages", I did not imagine how interesting and vast this argument was, a true specialization of the historical post. Little followed in Italy, it has many enthusiasts in the rest of Europe. The study of the transit and provenance marks is necessary to fully understand the journey and consequently the application of the rates on the letters in the philatelic period when, in the exchange of correspondence between states, there was the need to count how much money due to every single crossed state. To set up a collection-study of these marks (and manuscripts) forces to locate a well-defined geographical and temporal area of interest. To get an idea about how many marks we should chase if we wanted to set up our collection in a continental setting, it's enough to look at the two volumes of James Van der Linden that classiffy a few thousand of marks. 1 I've personally decided to dedicate myself to the marks and manuscripts of the Kingdom of Sardinia from origins to December 31st, 1850, that's the last day before the adoption of the stamps when, in my opinion, the prephilatelic period ends.

When deconstructing covers or certain other postal artifacts, one sees the stamps first. Immediately after that, the postal markings on the document are the most prominent features. These markings fall into several categories, the largest of which are often referred to as Auxiliary Markings. This is a very complex topic of study, with some philatelists estimating that upwards of a million markings exist. Numerous authors have struggled to present an approach to organizing Auxiliary Markings. For marcophilists (collectors of Auxiliary Markings), several taxonomies have been designed, but none of them strike me as meeting the needs of postal historians.

My on-going Mastering Postal History column in the Kelleher’s Stamp Collector’s Quarterly 2Q, 2017 issue presents a review of previous taxonomies. I then develop an alternative taxonomy that better describes Auxiliary Markings from the standpoint of postal history analysis. The column is entitled “The Role of Auxiliary Markings in Postal History”. It is the first of a two-part treatment of Auxiliary Markings.

Tradizionalmente, il collezionismo filatelico manifesta perplessità a relazionarsi con il mondo dei musei, della storia del collezionismo artistico e delle istituzioni culturali. Diffidenza che comunque marca entrambi i versanti. Oggi però merita molta attenzione la straordinaria e preziosa donazione di Marco De Marchi che dal 1936 ha permesso alla città di Milano di dotarsi di una collezione filatelica pubblica. Come sezione del Museo del Risorgimento, essa è stata oggetto di un programma di digitalizzazione e messa in rete. Un modello nuovo e fecondo di fruizione dei francobolli e insieme della ricca serie dei segni della materialità postale.

Il tema analizzato riguarda il trattamento della corrispondenza epistolare nella Toscana interessata direttamente o indirettamente da gravi episodi sanitari di natura epidemica. Il saggio esamina un particolare e relativamente breve momento storico, il periodo napoleonico, in cui le vicende sanitarie hanno anche toccato da vicino la terra di Toscana con la terribile epidemia di febbre gialla di Livorno del 1804-1805. Si parla degli sforzi per contenere e prevenire il contagio che all'epoca si riteneva potesse essere veicolato anche dalle corrispondenze cartacee e da queste trasmesso agli uomini. Il transito di persone, animali, merci e lettere venne regolamentato su tutte le frontiere toscane, sia quelle di mare che quelle di terra, e coinvolse anche le strutture sanitarie degli stati confinanti. I lazzaretti furono le strutture preposte all'attività di controllo ed eliminazione dei rischi di contagio. A Livorno ne erano in funzione tre, efficienti e collaudati da molti anni di attività; ma anche altri ne vennero creati per le necessità contingenti.
Si parla prevalentemente di Toscana tirrenica e insulare. Si analizzano le metodiche di disinfezione delle lettere che si scopre essere caratteristiche a Livorno a seconda della provenienza, mentre invece all'isola d'Elba vengono applicati sistemi più tradizionali. A Piombino si progetta una piccola ma raffinata e funzionale "casa sanitaria" all'interno della quale vi doveva essere anche il luogo per "affumare le lettere". Le barche corriere in servizio tra Bastia e Portoferraio spesso vengono poste in quarantena, al contrario di quelle tra Piombino e Portoferraio.

This work is about the disinfection treatment of the correspondence in the Tuscany interested directly or indirectly by serious events of epidemic nature. In particular it shall examine one relatively short historical period - the Napoleonic Age - during which sanitary incidents touched closely the Tuscany lands with the terrible epidemic yellow fever of Leghorn in 1804-1805.
Then it talks about the efforts of containing and preventing the infection which, by that period, was thought to be carried also by paper correspondence to humans. The passage through every Tuscany frontiers, both sea and land ones, of people, animals, goods and letters was regulated and the rules concerned the medical facilities of the neighboring countries too. The quarantine hospital were the structures designed to the activity of control and elimination of the risks of contagion. In Leghorn three were in operation, efficient and had been testing for many years of activity; but also others were created from there for the contingent necessities.
It primarily speaks of Tyrrhenian and insular Tuscany; it comes to be analyzed the method of disinfection of the letters, which is found to be characteristic at Leghorn according to the origin, while in the island of Elba more traditional systems were applied. A small but refined and functional "sanitary house" is planned at Piombino, inside which it might be the place where "affumare" the letters too. The mail boats in service between Bastia and Portoferraio were often set in quarantine, unlike those between Piombino and Portoferraio.

Introduzione, e piano dell'opera, stesi nel 1984 in occasione del via all'edizione a stampa, in volumetti, del lavoro di Enrico Melillo, Ordinamenti postali e telegrafici degli antichi Stati italiani e del Regno d'Italia. Un'opera completata nel 1913 e rimasta dattiloscritta in ragione anche dell'affievolirsi della corrente internazionale di attenzione alla storia postale, allora appunto intesa come storia giuridica delle amministrazioni postali e telegrafiche. Piccolo segnale ulteriore, l'edizione finalmente a stampa, della ripresa di interesse per le tematiche storiche delle comunicazioni, nonché del ruolo avuto dai cultori italiani.

Il tema contabile assume grande rilievo in argomento di posta e di trasmissione delle lettere. Dietro ad esso si cela un capitolo di socialità sul quale le storie di posta aziendali hanno volentieri sorvolato. I fogli dei conti evocano la natura multiforme degli scriventi: dagli altolocati delle corti abituati ad essere serviti senza dover pagare fino alle povere donne che per riscattare la lettera spedita da un marito lontano dovevano passare dal monte dei pegni per recuperare il contante necessario.

The discovery of sea route to India via Cape of Good Hope by Vasco da Gama did not totally do away with the traditional linkages that Indian Ocean had with the Mediterranean world. On the other hand the Mediterranean connections were maintained through diverse mechanisms by different categories of Indian merchants, who were engaged in parallel movement of commodities to Europe. The basic aspect for the sustenance of trade that had by this time criss-crossed several continents was the ability to garner information about the market conditions of the places of procurement and distribution. Even when the Portuguese developed the Atlantic oriented cape route for their commerce, information used to travel frequently between India and eastern Mediterranean through the medium of traders and haj pilgrims going to Mecca. Eventually the traders through the caravan route also acted as carriers of information between the two. Later by the third quarter of the sixteenth century, the German traders developed a well-structured information networking system for the purpose of gathering information about the market conditions of the Mediterranean countries, which was also eventually used for collecting news about the nature and size of the Dutch vessels moving to the Indian Ocean from the Atlantic. This chapter dwells chiefly upon the nature of the information networking that different categories of traders resorted to for linking the commercial activities between India and the Mediterranean and shows how this parallel networking system became inevitable for the Portuguese in the seventeenth century for sustaining their commercial establishments, when threatened with frequent attacks from the Dutch and the English.

Paper given at the History of Education Society Annual Conference on the 20th November, 2015. This paper later appeared in the History of Education journal under the title "Microbial metaphors : teaching ‘familiar science’ at a Kent sanatorium, c.1905–1930" (Vol 46, No. 2: January, 2017)

This article seeks to explore the ways in which education functioned as a core tenet of the anti-tuberculosis (TB) movement in early twentieth-century Britain. Education can be seen to have taken on a unique role in the therapeutic regimes for TB from the late 1880s with Robert Philips’s Edinburgh Dispensary system. The focus on the ‘social management’ of the disease, however, continued to evolve throughout this period as it interacted with a broad and varied landscape of therapeutic provision for TB. By looking at the case of the Post Office Sanatorium Society (POSS), this article brings to light the ways in which themes of working-class sociability, respectability and autonomy created and sustained a unique system of therapeutic pedagogy for the tuberculous worker. Such pedagogy was emblematic of what Melanie Keene has termed ‘familiar science’, a mode of scientific education with its origins in early nineteenth-century educational practice.