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Postal cards may seem like an outdated relic of the past, yet until the early 2000s they were still commonly sent as greetings from a holiday, as a thank-you note, or as a brief message. The first one is said to have been sent in Austria in 1869, while in Italy they spread a few years later: simple cards without images, printed by the State and pre-stamped. Before long, however, graphic designers, painters and photographers took the initiative to print illustrated postcards to be bought, written on, stamped and mailed. In the spirit of complete personalization, some people also had their own photographs printed on card in postcard format and sent them in this way to friends and relatives. The history of illustrated postcards is complex and fascinating, especially when they depict distant places or locations rarely visited or passed through. Sardinia is no exception: throughout the first half of the twentieth century it remained rather isolated from the rest of Europe, even though travellers and photographers were beginning to discover and capture it.
For some years, the photo library of the Archive of the Istituto Superiore Regionale Etnografico della Sardegna (ISRE) has preserved a curious and rare collection of illustrated postcards: the Pio Colombini Collection. It consists of about 1,800 photographic postcards depicting images of Sardinia dating from the final years of the nineteenth century to the first decades of the following century. The main cities are represented, as well as small coastal and inland towns, through panoramic views, characteristic glimpses and details of squares, monuments, buildings and the means of transport of the period—from steamships and steam trains to the very rare automobiles, in years when animal-drawn vehicles such as carts and carriages were still common in both villages and cities. The collection was assembled over fifteen years by Pio Colombini (Montalcino, 1865–1935), professor of dermosyphilopathy at the University of Sassari, a cultivated man devoted to many cultural passions and interests. Colombini did not merely collect the postcards; he arranged them systematically according to geographical and thematic criteria, organizing them in four bound albums decorated with Liberty-style covers that contain light green card sheets printed with delicate floral motifs in the same taste. Each sheet is cut at the four corners to hold the postcards, which are almost always in the standard format of the time, 14 x 9 cm, with the exception of several examples in panoramic, double or triple format, which were inserted into the albums folded.
Bibliography
Sardegna tra due secoli nelle cartoline illustrate della collezione Colombini, a cura di F. Pilia. Cagliari, 3T, 1980.
Cartoline dall'Italia. Il fondo di cartoline fotografiche del Corriere della sera, a cura di G. Ginex. Milano, Forma, 2006.
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