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The 2012 aerogramme commemorates the fifth centenary of the liberation of St. Jerome Emiliani (1481-1537), a priest and founder of the Order of Somaschi Fathers, officially known as the Order of Clerics Regular of Somasca. A Venetian soldier, Emiliani commanded the fortress of Castelnuovo (Treviso) during initial years of the War of the League of Cambrai (1508-1516). This conflict, one of the series of Italian Wars, involved (among others) north Italian principalities, such as the Republic of Venice, the Papal States, Florence, and Milan, as well as rulers of Aragon, the Holy Roman Empire (including mercenaries from the Swiss cantons), and France. Emiliani was captured after the fall of Castelnuovo. While imprisoned he was devoted to meditation and prayer. On 27 September 1511 he was inexplicably liberated from prison, considered by Emiliani due to the intervention of the Blessed Mother. He was ordained a priest in 1511, recovered from the plague, and devoted his life to the care of the young and abandoned. Emiliani founded charitable institutions such as orphanages. hospitals, and homes for reformed prostitutes. He died at Somasca (Lecco) in 1537. Emiliani was canonized in 1767. Pope Pius XI declared Emiliani the patron of orphans and abandoned children in 1928. Vatican City and Italy have jointly issued an aerogramme commemorating St. Jerome Emiliani. The aerogrammes include the oil on canvas painting of St. Jerome Emiliani's Liberation by Francesco Zuccarelli (1748), located at the Pinacoteca Civica Repossi in Chan (Brescia), Italy. The postal indicia depicts the Basilica of Sts. Barbara and Alexius on the Aventine, in Rome, based upon a 1752 etching located at the Basilica library of the Clerics Regular of Somosca.

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