The Winged Victory of Samothrace sails across the top of the page, and beneath her, inside a photographic frame cut in the shape of a shield, a man and a woman bend over an infant. The state’s pension institute is advertising — and its promise is aimed at the families of men at the front.
«AL SERVIZIO DEL PAESE» runs across the top. The copy underneath the shield says precisely what the montage implies: «umanissime provvidenze» — most human provisions — «assicurano la serenità di chi dà il suo braccio alla laboriosa potenza della patria in armi». The closing words date the sheet: the fatherland is in armi, at war. At the foot: ISTITUTO PREVIDENZA SOCIALE.
Insurance as war propaganda
Italy’s public social-insurance system had grown by accretion since the 1890s — the first state pension guarantees date to 1895 — and by the war years the institute was the central body every worker’s contributions flowed through. Its appearance in this series of industrial war banners, between steel groups and engine works, is itself the message: social insurance presented as one more component of the war economy, the shield behind the arm. The Victory of Samothrace — a Greek marble in the Louvre pressed here into Italian service — gives the page its aura of classical triumph, the same borrowed-antiquity formula the campaign used with charioteers and Venuses.
Marks
The collector attributes the sheet to Erberto Carboni, reading an EC monogram below the slogan; nothing resolves there on our scan, and the sheet is published without an attribution. The «patria in armi» wording places it in the war years.
About this image. The work is still protected by copyright: under Italian law (L. 633/1941) rights run for 70 years from the death of the author. Since the author has not been identified, that term cannot be considered expired, and the image is treated as fully protected. It is reproduced here for documentation, study and critical purposes only, under Art. 70 of L. 633/1941 and the fair-use provision of 17 U.S.C. §107. The scan was made by the collector from his own copy of the sheet, part of the period material he keeps in a private archive: owning the physical sheet is not the same as holding the rights to the work. The image is not offered for sale, no reproduction rights are granted, and any request concerning the work should be addressed to the rights holders. Cultural Heritage Online publishes this material to document it, with no celebratory intent; see our terms and the DMCA contact published there.
Sources
- INPS — the growth of Italian public social insurance from the first state pension guarantees of 1895
- The sheet itself, for the copy and the montage.
