Virgil

These stamps page showing ancient scenes are related in some way to Publius Vergilius Maro, better known as Virgil. He was from Ancient Rome, from what is now Mantua, Italy. He lived from 70 to 19 b.c.e. and was a famous writer, a poet of his time – and still famous, although I’ve never read anything he wrote. One of his best works, written in Latin, was the Aeneid. It’s an epic poem about the legendary Aeneas, a Trojan who left Troy when it fell and went to Rome. He was the ancestor of Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome.

There are a few standard postage stamps, but there are also a couple of semi-postal stamps and some air mail stamps, two of which are semi-post air mail stamps. All of these stamps depict scenes from the Aenid. The semi-postal and semi-postal air mail stamps cost more than the normal price to raise funds for the restoration of Virgil monuments around the country – which was a big thing the Fascists like to do, restore and herald key places and figures of the old empire. This also seemed to have been a common thing for the Italian post office, to raise money for something or other.

Note

This album page is complete with all unused stamps. They’re not very expensive, so I was able recently to get them all in one order from a local stamp dealer.

Contains 13 spots: own 13 – 13 unused, 0 used.
Page is finished.
Album or Web Page Last changed Oct 28, 2022

Stamp Details

The table below lists information about the stamps shown on this page of Lighthouse’s stamp album. For more details about a particular stamp, click on its description. That will take you to the related web page of Colnect.

spot

own

catalog

subject

description

comment

Virgil

1.1	✓	282	Helenus greets Aeneas	15c (oct 1930) comm., brown
1.2	✓	283	Aeneas’ Mandate to Govern	20c (oct 1930) comm., orange
1.3	✓	284	Aeneas Lands on Tiber	25c (oct 1930) comm., green
2.1	✓	285	Greetings to Italia	30c (oct 1930) comm., purple
2.2	✓	286	The Wealth of Farmers	50c (oct 1930) comm., purple
2.3	✓	287	The Family	75c (oct 1930) comm., pink
3.1	✓	288	Anchises approaches Italy	1.25₤ (oct 1930) comm., sky blue
3.2	✓	289	Pastoral Life Semi-Postal	5+1.50₤ (oct 1930) semi-postal, brown
3.3	✓	290	Turn Encourages Men Semi-Postal	10+2.50₤ (oct 1930) semi-postal, green

Air Mail

4.1	✓	A21	Jupiter, Eagle, Road Consular	50c (oct 1930) air mail, brown
4.2	✓	A22	Jupiter, Eagle, Road Consular	1₤ (oct 1930) air mail, orange

Semi-Postal Air Mail

5.1	✓	A23	Jupiter, Eagle, Road Consular	7.70+1.30₤ (oct 1930) air mail, purple
5.2	✓	A24	Jupiter, Eagle, Road Consular	9+2₤ (oct 1930) air mail, sky blue

Footnotes

Spot refers to the postion of the stamp on the album page (e.g., 3.2 indicates row 3, position 2).
Amt. is an abbreviation for the face amount of the stamp.
Own indicates the stamp status: ✓ for unused; ✗ for used or canceled; ⭑ signifies I ordered one; ; ✨ indicates it was bought recently; ✠ means an auction bid is pending; and ◎ is used, and it costs too much for unused.
To search by catalog number, go to the search box and enter it in the catalog number box. However, it’s a bit broken; I need to fix it.