Italy: Vintage Travel Posters Book of Postcards

From Calais to Constantinople, a golden age of rail travel coincided with an inspiring era of poster art, luring tourists to glittering waterways, historic city centers, and sun-bleached villages. In Italy, many of these posters arose from a partnership between the national railway, the Ferrovie dello Stato, and the Italian National Tourist Board, or ENIT (look for their circular crests flanking headlined attractions). Foreign rail companies, too, were in the business and advertised destinations on lines that passed through Italy, helping form a European crisscrossing that brought riders from cities and towns all along the lines.

With eye-catching illustrations and typography, renowned artists and anonymous designers created for the world an ideal escape, positioning the viewer high above their picturesque destination or directly on the water. Though often little is known about these artists today, their stunning works contributed to a boom in Italian tourism during the interwar years, when most of the posters reproduced here were created.

Images

1. Attilio Ravaglia, Palermo


2. Unknown designer, Siena, 1925


3. Roger Broders (French, 1883–1953), Rome, 1921


4. Reinhart Wettach (1898–1976), Capri Italia, 1949


5. Ernest Louis Lessieux (French, 1848–1925), Chemins de Fer de l’Est / Venise


6. Antonio Simeoni, Lago di Garda / Riva, c. 1926


7. Mario Borgoni (Italian, 1869–1936), Merano, c. 1927


8. Unknown designer, Simplon Express


9. Marcello Nizzoli (Italian, 1887–1969), Bergamo, 1927


10. Georges Dorival (French, 1879–1968), Rome


11. Marcello Dudovich (Italian, 1878–1962) and Marcello Nizzoli (Italian, 1887–1969), Venezia Lido, c. 1930


12. Mario Borgoni (Italian, 1869–1936), Lake Maggiore, c. 1925


13. Georges Dorival (French, 1879–1968), Venise, 1921


14. Virgilio Retrosi (Italian, 1892–1975), Roma, c. 1930


15. Attilio Ravaglia, Ravenna, c. 1930s


16. Marcello Dudovich (Italian, 1878–1962), Padova, c. 1930


17. Unknown designer, Venezia, 1928


18. Giuseppe Riccobaldi (Italian, 1887–1976), Lago di Garda / Riva-Torbole


19. Roger Broders (French, 1883–1953), Florence, 1921


20. Vittorio Grassi (Italian, 1878–1958), Taormina, 1933


21. Unknown designer, Aux Lacs Italiens, c. 1928


22. Piffero, Visitez l’Italie par train


23. Unknown designer, Marina di Ravenna, 1931


24. Giuseppe Magagnoli (Italian, 1878–1933), The Valley of Aosta, c. 1925


25. Unknown designer, Montecatini, c. 1930


26. Publio Morbiducci, Ravello, 1933


27. Franz Lenhart (Austrian, 1898–1992), Dolomiti, 1938


28. Unknown designer, Trafoi / Passo dello Selvio, c. 1920


29. Elio Ximenes (1855–1926), Lago di Garda, c. 1905


30. Unknown designer, Venezia, 1938