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This postcard was mailed from Vatican City on April 26, 1937 to Hamburg, Germany. It is franked with the 25L stamp (Scott #23) from the 1933 Garden & Medallion series showing the Apostolic Palace and the obelisk viewed from St. Peter's Square. The postcard provides both an interesting subject and a look at the cancellation type that was used. The front of the postcard depicts one of the "Musical Angel" frescoes produced by Melozzo da Forli around 1472. Melozzo was commissioned to paint the vault of the apse in the Basilica dei Santi Apostoli in Rome (one of the Roman Station churches, visited on the first Friday of Lent). The main subject of the fresco depicted the Ascension of Christ, and in this work Melozzo displayed the use of the technique known as foreshortening. In the fresco, Christ appears to be moving away from the viewer and through the top of the vault, ascending to Heaven. The fresco was also decorated with at least six "Angel Musicians", with the angel playing the mandolin being presented on the postcard. The fresco was removed from the basilica in the 18th century, and the "Musical Angels" are now on display in the Pinacoteca of the Vatican Museums. As a note, Vatican City issued a six-stamps set portraying the angels in 1998, and those stamps are pictured at the bottom of this article (the angel playing the mandolin is pictured on the 650L stamp).  In addition to the portrayal of the Musical Angel, the postcard also provides a study of the postmark used to cancel the stamp. The postmark is a machine-cancel type IV-1 as described in Vatican Notes Volume 44, Number 1, page 17. The outer diameter of each circle is 23mm and the inner circle has a diameter of 15mm. The two circles are 18mm. apart. There is a series of 7 lines separating the two postmark circles. The top line of the postmark moon, or the inner circle of the postmark, gives the hour of the cancellation. The center line shows the day and month (in roman numerals) of cancellation. The bottom line gives the year of cancellation.  The Vatican Notes illustration of the machine-cancel Type IV-1 (shown above) indicates that the measurement of the horizontal distance between the P and E of the word POSTE is 14mm in the left postmark circle and 15mm in the right postmark circle.   Measuring the postcard cancellation of the left circle shows the P-E distance is 14mm.  The right circle P-E distance measures 15mm. 
 
 The Musical Angels by Melozzo da Forli Scott 1075-1080 (1998) References: |
