Torino - Esposiz 1911 - Le LL. MM. alla cerimonia inaugurale

Catalog Level
Items (Cataloging Focus)

Title Proper/Title Text
Torino - Esposiz 1911 - Le LL. MM. alla cerimonia inaugurale

Name of Publisher/Creator Identity
Stabilimento Campassi e Diena

Date of Publication/Creation Date
May 8, 1911 on the Verso

Place of Publication/Creation Place
Turin

Inscription Language
Italian (Language)

General Subject Terms

• Inaugurations (Building Ceremonies)

Descriptive Note Text

This black-and-white photo postcard shows a moment in the inaugural ceremony of the Exposition, featuring King Vittorio Emanuele III and Queen Elena. 

The photograph is taken from an elevated position at the back of the audience, looking across the crowd toward a wide carpeted dais. The lower third is filled with the backs of the seated audience, almost all men in dark formal dress. The upper two-thirds shows the stage and its dignitaries against an elaborate backdrop.

Near the center of the platform, two women in pale gowns and large feathered hats sit beside a man in military uniform with a sash and decorations. By their central placement and the caption, these are presumably the royal party. To the left sit officers in full-dress uniforms, with sashes, orders, and swords. Other men in uniforms or white-tie evening wear, many wearing sashes and medals, fill the rest of the stage. These are likely the members of the exposition's committees and other city officials.

Behind the central group hangs a backdrop patterned with the Savoy cross. In front of it, two female statues on tall pedestals raise a wreath overhead. 

The postcard is dated May 8, 1911, and was mailed to Naples the following day. Its message takes on added resonance given the occasion: at an exposition celebrating fifty years of Italian unification, the writer invites the recipient to visit Turin so that he can return the hospitality he received in Naples as a forestier[o], an outsider. The word is telling: half a century after unification, a traveler from Turin still felt himself a stranger in the South.

Current Repository/Geographic Location
Cristina Della Coletta Private Collection (San Diego, USA)

Current Repository Numbers
CDC-PC-INAU-0005