Postcard Florence Baptistery, Edizioni Z.B. Florence, interwar period

Italian postcard in sepia halftone depicting the Battistero di San Giovanni in Florence, seen from the Piazza del Duomo with the characteristic green and white marble facing of the Duomo to the right and, to the left, the facades leading toward the Via de' Cerretani. In the foreground, passers-by, a street lamp and a handcart beneath an awning lend the square an unforced everyday character. The card is published by Edizioni Z.B. in Florence, with the caption "Firenze, Il Battistero" in elegant italic on the reverse and the bilingual imprint Imprime en Italie and Printed in Italy. Unposted, in good condition with slight edge discolouration.

The Battistero di San Giovanni ranks among the oldest and most photographed buildings of Florence. The present structure was completed around 1128, but the origins of the building reach back to the fourth or fifth century, with parts long imagined by popular memory as Roman. The green and white marble facing, the purely octagonal plan and the three bronze doors, including the eastern door by Lorenzo Ghiberti which Michelangelo called the Porta del Paradiso, made the baptistery one of the obligatory stops of the Italian Grand Tour. Edizioni Z.B., active in Florence during the first half of the twentieth century, published postcards aimed at the international tourist market, with bilingual production imprints that made the card accessible to visitors from France, England and the United States.