COVER N.22 - Italy

Postmark: Verona CMP - 29JUN2021
Posted on the  29th june; received on the 13th July.
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My first Italian Cover. Grazie mille Cristian.

I was taken aback when I took this one out of the mailbox. No fewer than 12 stamps, 8 of each pretty large and 4 in a block and what was more surprising was that they were still denominated in Liras. I didn't know that these could still circulate. In my own country, only stamps issued after 2011 can be used as postage.

Stamps, left to right:

- a stamp block, composed of  four units of the 200L stamp  issued on 05JUN1982, that would  inaugurate an annual series running until 2013, dedicated to Italian folklore and popular festivities. The stamp celebrates the Battle of the Bridge, at Pisa, an event in which 12 teams of the local neighbourhoods, 6 on each side of the river, and thus on each of the 2 opposing teams, Tramontana e Mezzogiorno,  compete. The aim of the contest is like a tug of war in reverse, because here the teams push as hard as they can a strange cart mounted on rails on the bridge over the Arno river, with the aim of overwhelming the opposing team.

 - two 300L stamps, issued on 11MAR1982 constitute the 1982 (and ninth) issue of an annual series dedicated to Italian Painters:

Romantic period painter Francesco Hayez's  (1791-1882) Portrait of Countess Antonietta Negroni Prati Morosini as a Child; 

Rococó Giovanni Battista Piazzetta (1682-1784) a detail of "The soothsayer".

 - a pair of one of the two 1981 stamps of the same series, issued on 07SEP1981:

Modernist painter and one of the names behind the Futurist manifesto, Carlo Carrá (1881-1966) - Lagoon

The last 4 stamps, issued on 31MAR182, celebrate de 7th Centenary of the Sicilan Vespers (Vespri Siciliani), a revolt in 1282 in Palermo against the reign of Charles I of Anjou , who had taken control of Sicily in 1266 with the help of Pope Clement IV (source: Wikipedia)

The machine applied cancellation lets us know that the cover was mailed in Verona, of Romeo and Juliet fame.