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