Lieutenancy

At this point in World War II, in 1943 after the Allied Forces took over Sicily and then southern Italy, the Fascists and Mussolini were thrown out of power and the king surrendered and appointed a new prime minister, Pietro Badoglio. Having joined forces with the Allies, the king and Badoglio first set up the new government in Brindisi. In early 1944, they moved it to Salerno as the Allied Forces progressed north towards Rome. Because the king had mistakenly backed Mussolini and perhaps because he was getting older and feeling distraught and drained from the failures of having foreign forces in his country and rescuing them from native adversaries, in June of 1944 the king gave control of the country to his son, Umberto II. He was named luogotenente, the Lieutenant General of the Realm. The word luogotenente or lieutenant comes from the Latin term, locum tenens, meaning keeping a place,

Basically, the crown prince was keeping the king’s place, holding onto his authority and acting on his behalf while the king took a break from power. Therefore, this period is known as the Luogotenenza of Lieutenancy period. The stamps on this album page and the next four pages, the remainder of this album, were issued during that period, up until the time when the king abdicated on May 9, 1946, allowing Umberto II to become the next and last monarch of the Kingdom of Italy – but only for forty-two days before the monarch is abolished.

Note

Given the state of the country, there wasn’t much to celebrate or commemorate. The post office issued only more of the same definitives, but without the fascist symbols and overprints. Perhaps they wanted to show the public the government had returned to normality: the kingdom led by the king, rather that Musolini, the man who would be Duke. As a result, these stamps don’t thrill me very much. Perhaps this is why I took so long to get the ones I was missing. But, they didn’t cost much and I’m obsessed with completing all of the pages I can. So I bought recently the remaining ones – I bought them from a local dealer that I do not like, but he’s the only one that sold them individually, not in sets. Now I have all of them. That’s satisfying.

Contains 12 spots: own 12 – 12 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

Romulus & Remus

1.1	✓	515	Capitoline Wolf	50c (jan 1944) definitive, violet & lilac grey
1.2	✓	515A	Capitoline Wolf	50c (mar 1944) definitive, violet & lilac grey

Lieutenancy Definitives

2.1	✓	516	Vittorio Emanuele III	30c (nov 1944) definitive, brown
2.2	✓	517	Vittorio Emanuele III	50c (nov 1944) definitive, purple
2.3	✓	518	Vittorio Emanuele III	60c (nov 1944) definitive, green
2.4	✓	519	Julius Caesar	1₤ (oct 1944) definitive, violet & purple
3.1	✓	520	Augustus Octavian	10c (apr 1945) definitive, dark brown
3.2	✓	530	Vittorio Emanuele III	60c (jul 1945) definitive, green
3.3	✓	531	Julius Caesar	1₤ (may 1945) definitive, violet

Definitives: Overprint

4.1	✓	523	Augustus Octavian Overprint	2.50₤ (mar 1945) definitive, orange
4.2	✓	524	Merchant Lodge Bologna	1.20₤ (may 1945) definitive, pink
4.3	✓	525-N	San Lorenzo Basilica Rome	2₤ (may 1945) definitive, green

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.