Dante Society

The fascists often invoked the name and writings of the Tuscan writer, Dante Alighieri. They saw him as their Isaiah: “a voice in the desert calling out, make way for the coming of the Lord”. Along those lines, in Dante’s famous book, The Divine Comedy, near the end of its second volume, Purgatory, the character Beatrice prophesies the coming of a savior. The fascists interpreted that as Benito Mussolini.

The Dante Alighieri Society was founded in 1889. Its purpose is “to promote the study of the Italian language and culture throughout the world.” The name of the society and their purpose were aligned enough with the fascists, despite the caveat in their mission statement that their purpose is “a purpose independent of political ideologies, national or ethnic origins or religious beliefs.” From what I can discern from my research, these stamps were not only meant to promote the works of Italian writers, but were in part a fund raiser for the Society.

Besides the details of each stamp in the table below, I’ve listed the names of the famous Italians that each depicts. Almost all of them are writers from the Italian peninsula and islands – one is from Greece. The ironic thing is that none of them are from the Kingdom of Italy, but from previous kingdoms, duchies, and other states that were conquered and merged into what is now Italy. Not only that, only a few of them spoke or wrote in the Italian language – which is just the Tuscan langauge – since they weren’t from Tuscany. That would seem counter to the Dante Society’s purpose to promote the Italian language.

These stamps are like the ones in the main album for the Kingdom of Italy (i.e., Historic Italians), but are overprinted with the words, Isole Italiane dell’Egeo – which is Italian for the Italian Aegean Islands.

Note

This page is complete. However, it doesn’t contain all of the stamps from the Dante Society series. On the next page, the one entitled, Leonardo Air has a set of air mail stamps that are part of this series. Those are Dante Society stamps, celebrating Leonardo da Vinci.

Contains 12 spots: own 12 – 12 unused, 0 used.
Page is finished.
Album or Web Page Last changed Jan 22, 2024

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

Dante Alighieri Society

1.1	✓	44	Giovanni Boccaccio	10c (may 1932) comm., dark olive green
1.2	✓	45	Niccolo Machiavelli	15c (may 1932) comm., grey lilac
1.3	✓	46	Paolo Sarpi	20c (may 1932) comm., brown orange
2.1	✓	47	Vittorio Alfieri	25c (may 1932) comm., green
2.2	✓	48	Ugo Foscolo	30c (may 1932) comm., dark orange
2.3	✓	49	Giacomo Leopardi	50c (may 1932) comm., dark lilac
3.1	✓	50	Giosue Carducci	75c (may 1932) comm., carmine rose
3.2	✓	51	Carlo Botta	1.25₤ (may 1932) comm., dark blue
3.3	✓	52	Torquato Tasso	1.75₤ (may 1932) comm., sepia
4.1	✓	53	Francesco Petrarca	2.75₤ (may 1932) comm., light pink

Semi-Postal

4.2	✓	54	Ludovico Ariosto	5+2₤ (may 1932) comm., dark violet
5.1	✓	55	Dante Alighieri	10+2.50₤ (may 1932) semi-postal, lilac brown

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.

Famous Italians

Biographical Facts
Name	Years	Born: Town, State	Occupation

Giovanni Boccaccio	1313 - 1375	Certaldo, Republic of Florence	Writer, poet, and humanist.
Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli	1469 - 1527	Florence, Republic of Florence	Diplomat, author, philosopher and historian.
Paolo Sarpi	1552 - 1623	Venice, Republic of Venice	Historian, prelate, scientist, canon lawyer, and statesman.
Vittorio Alfieri	1749 - 1803	Florence, Republic of Florence	Count, Dramatist and poet.
Niccolò ‘Ugo’ Foscolo	1778 - 1827	Zakynthos, Republic of Venice	Writer, revolutionary, and poet.
Giacomo Leopardi	1798 - 1837	Recanati, Marche, Kingdom of France later a Papal State	Philosopher, poet, essayist, and philologist.
Giosuè Carducci	1835 - 1907	Pietrasanta, Grand Duchy of Tuscany	Poet, writer, literary critic and teacher, winner of Nobel Prize in Literature.
Carlo Botta	1766 - 1837	San Giorgio Canavese, Kingdom of Sardegna	Historian.
Torquato Tasso	1544 - 1594	Sorrento, Kingdom of Sicily	Poet.
Francesco Petrarca	1304 - 1374	State of Arezzo, later Republic of Florence	Scholar, poet, humanist, historian.
Ludovico Ariosto	1474 - 1533	Reggio Emilia, Duchy of Modena and Reggio	Poet.
Dante Alighieri	1265 - 1321	Florence, Republic of Florence	Poet, writer and philosopher.