Leafing through old family memories, I came across a collection of vintage postcards that my father jealously guarded: on the other hand he was a fan of art and antiquity and by attending antique markets he knew how to smell the affair or the “patacca” (name attributed in the past to various coins mostly non-Italian and remained in popular use to indicate coins of low value or fake object sold as authentic and of great value, practically a fake)!
These are postcards that are almost one hundred years old (!) and at the time they were the only possibility that ordinary people had to greet relatives and friends and send them, in addition to best wishes, a panorama or a particular view of their city or of the holiday destination.
And so, among others, I came across postcards depicting the monuments of my city, Vicenza, and looking at them in more detail my mind went back in time, imagining what it was like to live there a hundred years ago.
The journey, however, did not last long, as an idea immediately flashed within me: why not reproduce the same photos of the time today and compare what (or nothing) has changed in almost a hundred years?
So I took as inspiration four photo cards of the time and, thanks to a beautiful sunny day, last Friday (28/02/2020) I took an hour off before entering the office and I took the opportunity to take a walk in the city !
I must admit that this CoronaVirus COVID-19 psychosis also helped me because, in fact, I was able to take pictures with only a few people around and therefore I had practically the city all to myself!
So here I went in search of the places of these four old postcards and I tried, as far as possible, to photograph them from the same original angle.
I really liked this new experience which as LocalGuide was becoming both a passion and a new adventure: trying to capture and recreate today what a hundred years was depicted and accompanied many beautiful words and kind greetings between friends or relatives.
I really enjoyed it, and, if you have the opportunity to find old (but very old!) Postcards from your city, I can only advise you to repeat my experience and I can’t wait to see your results!
This is the “Piazza dei Signori” in Vicenza, the original postcard should be from around 1950, and no, in Vicenza at that time there was no sea! It is only an original idea of the author who imagined Vicenza like Venice, surrounded by water! Now that palace is the seat of the Town >Hall of the city, while at the time it was the residence of the “Podestà” and the Captain, the representatives of the Lordship of Venice in the Vicenza city.
This is “Palazzo Chiericati”: built starting from 1550 as the residence of a noble family of the time. Since 1855 the building has housed the “Museo Civico” (‘City Museum’) and, more recently, the city’s art gallery. This postcard is also part of the “If the sea was in Vicenza” collection!
“Arch of the Zavatteri” (took this name because the market for shoes and slippers which was called “zavate” was kept below it) and the “Tower of Torment” : initially was used as a residence, then as a municipal and notary archive, finally as a prison! The original postcard is dated April 31, 1919!
The latter postcard instead (from 1928) represents the long avenue leading to the railway station.
Note the old railway station in the background (destroyed during the Second World War conflict). As you can see there were many more people around at that time, and actually seeing Vicenza as an empty city made an impression on me anyway!
(For CoronaVirus COVID-19, as a preventive measure, they closed schools for two weeks and canceled all sporting and cultural events, including the carnival, to avoid the gathering of people and therefore the possible contagion).
I hope that this influence passes as soon as possible, so as to take possession of our daily lives and go out among the people and, why not, have the good fortune of “Carpe Diem”:
Thanks for reading, and I hope you can replicate this experience for your city too!
Bye,
David
!!
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