The illustrated postcard is a 10×15 cm cardboard that reproduces landscapes, works of art, humorous drawings, portraits of people, historical events, and practically everything. Widespread in Italy since 1870, it had a great fortune as a means of communication up to the present day, but we are only interested in those collected by aeronautics enthusiasts who also keep centenary specimens, such as the 1909 one shown here. The postcard immortalizes the preparatory stages for one of the flights that Wilbur Wright made starting from the meadows of Centocelle between 16 and 26 April. Wilbur arrived in Rome at the invitation of the “aviators club”, a private institution but with a conspicuous military component inside, with a contract already signed for 25,000 lire in his pocket to give piloting lessons and another to sell the plane which he had in tow for another 25,000.
In the end, in eleven days Wilbur performed 67 flights, 19 of which with passengers, including Lieutenant Calderara, Lieutenant Savoia, Captain Castagneris, secretary of the “Club Aviatori”, the Hon Sonnino, former prime minister and also the owner of the land from which the flyer had taken off, Countess Maria Macchi di Cellere. The noblewoman, intrigued by the American aviator, had invited him to dinner, and Wilbur Wright, to reciprocate, invited her to fly on his Flyer, she was the first Italian woman to fly
How many things in a postcard!
