My National Covers

Every now and then I have the opportunity to add what I call a "National Cover" to my collection.

These are nothing fancy. In fact they are but covers that I print  at home with the flag and coat of arms of a specific country and which I then either send to a fellow collector who is willing to help or give to friends or family or take my own self whenever travelling abroad, in the hope that these might find a way to a local post office to get a stamp and a postmark.

I will be adding these to a new "My National Covers" section in this blog.

If you don't see your country here and are willing to help me add your own country's national cover to my collection, please email me at pnsoares1@gmail.com. 

You'll get a cover from Portugal (if you want I'll be happy to print a Portuguese National Cover just like the ones I print for myself, although in a somewhat larger envelope) and a printed envelope with the relevant symbols printed, so that you can then return it to me.

Thanks a lot.

Note: Whenever possible I will try to transcribe the flag and coat of arms information from the relevant national site. Failing that I'll transcribe from Wikipedia.

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 República Italiana / Repubblica Italiana

The Flag

The tricolour became Italy’s national flag in Reggio Emilia on January 7th 1797, when the Cispadane Republic, at the proposal of Deputy Giuseppe Compagnoni, decreed “that the Cispadane Standard or Flag of Three Colours, Green, White and Red shall become universal and that these three Colours also be used in the Cispadane cockade, which must be worn by everybody”. But why precisely these three colours? In the Italy of 1796, which was swept by the victorious Napoleonic army, almost all the numerous Jacobin-inspired republics that had supplanted the old absolute States had adopted flags featuring three bands of equal dimensions and of varying colours, which were clearly inspired by the French model of 1790.

Also the “Italian” military divisions, which were established at the time to support the Napoleonic army, had standards fashioned in the same vogue. More specifically, the regimental banners of the Lombard Legion were coloured white, red and green, three colours that were deeply rooted in the Region’s collective heritage: the white and the red were taken from the age-old municipal coat of arms of the city of Milan (a red cross on a white field) while the green was taken from the uniforms of Milan’s Civic Guards, which had been green as of 1782. The same colours were later adopted for the standards of the Italian Legion, which grouped together the troops of the regions of Emilia and Romagna, which was probably the reason that spurred the Cispadane Republic to confirm them as the colours of its own flag. At the heart of the white fess, the emblem of the Republic, a quiver containing four arrows, surrounded by a garland of laurel decorated with a trophy of arms.

...

The Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed on 17 March, 1861, and its flag continued to be the one that was customary prior to the war of independence. However, the lack of an ad hoc law on the national flag, which instead only concerned military banners, led to the development of several variants, which were often arbitrary.

It was not until 1925 that the models of the national and State flags were prescribed by law. In the State flag, which was to be used in the residences of the sovereigns, the seats of Parliament, and in institutional offices and diplomatic missions, the coat of arms was defaced with the royal crown.

After the birth of the Republic, a presidential legislative decree of 19 June 1946 provisionally established the new flag, which was later confirmed by the Constituent Assembly in its session of 24 March 1947 and incorporated into Article 12 of the Constitutional Charter. The normally arid wording of the session’s minutes reveals all the emotion of that moment: “PRESIDENT [Ruini] – I put to the vote the new formula proposed by the Commission: The flag of the Republic is the Italian tricolour: green, white and red, in vertical bands of equal dimensions”. (The proposal is approved. The Assembly and the public in the gallery rise to their feet. A loud, prolonged applause echoed in unison).

Source: Italian Tricolour Flag

The Emblem

The emblem of the Italian Republic is characterised by three elements: the star, the cog-wheel, and olive and oak branches.

The olive branch symbolises the nation’s will for peace, embracing both internal concord and international brotherhood.

The oak branch that rims the right-hand-side of the emblem embodies the strength and the dignity of the Italian people. Moreover, both plants are among the most typical of Italy’s forest species.

The steel cog-wheel symbolises work and represents the first article of the Constitutional Charter: “Italy is a Democratic Republic, founded on work”.

The star is one of the most ancient emblems of Italian iconography and it has always been associated with the personification of Italy, crowning its head with its bright shine. This was how it was represented in the iconography of the Risorgimento and in the coat of arms of the Kingdom of Italy (the so-called “big star”). The star later characterised the first republican decoration during the reconstruction: the Star of Italian Solidarity, a decoration awarded to Italian military expatriates who made an outstanding contribution to the reconstruction of Italy after World War II.

Source: The emblem

The Stamp

Queen Elizabeth II (1926 – 2022) ruled the United Kingdom for almost 71 years, what makes of her the longest reigning queen in history.

One year past her death, on 12SEP2023, Poste Italiane honoured her memory with a single "B 1" tariff  (up to 50g Europe and Mediterranean bassin) stamp, which is quite illustrative of her long reign through a  clever and quite distinctive use of her effigy, under which her royal seal is also included. 

The Postmark

Unfortunately, the cover was not hand delivered at the Post Office but rather deposited in one of Poste Italiane's letterboxes. Later it was fed through a cancelling machine, but something went wrong and  the main part of the  cancel fell off the envelope, with its waves falling on the left side of the cover....

I thank my dear wife for having found the time to go through the trouble of getting the stamp and looking for a letterbox to send the cover, amidst her very tight working schedule.

As to the stamp, a foreign monarch is is not  a particularly adequate theme for a stamp meant to be used on a "National Cover" but I am sure my wife did her best and  insofar as it is an Italian stamp, all goes well that ends well. ;-)