The 47th edition of the “Day” was held in Turin on May 19th and 20th, on the occasion of the celebration of 100th anniversary of the Turin-Rome-Turin flight of 1917, an experimental flight that carried a postal courier franked with airmail stamp, the first in the world, prepared for the occasion by the Royal Italian Post Office.
The event took place in two locations, on May 19th at the “Salone del Libro”, where there was the presentation, with speeches by a manager of Italian Post Office, of Angelo Moriondo (Honorary President of Turin Aero Club), of a Bolaffi’s representative, of a journalist from “La Stampa” and Roberto Gottardi, AIDA President. At the same time, the exhibition was inaugurated at the National University Library in Piazza Carlo Alberto, which remained open to the public until May 20th. For the occasion, the local Aero Club exhibited in Piazza Castello, at the beginning of Via Roma, a “STAMPE SV 4” plane, a two-seater single-engine biplane from 30s built in Belgium to attract the attention of citizens and tourists to the event.
The exhibition had an excellent response from our members, who participated in the Aerophilatelia Day, presenting some of their collections in compliance with the usual formula of the non-competitive event.
In the 40 showcases of the exhibition, the lion’s share was played by Alfredo Bessone and Alberto Savio (in his exhibition debut) with collections dedicated to the centenary of the Turin-Rome-Turin flight, created with practically unique documents.
Also noteworthy are the other collections focused on the most diverse themes of aerophilately and aeropostal history. Here is the list of exhibitors with the title of the collections on display:
• Andrea Amoroso: “Aerophilatelia Pages”
• Eligio di Mento: “First flights over Palermo”
• Eligio di Mento: “Sicily Air Tour Selection”
• Ferdinando Giudici: “Souvenir du Siège de Paris – 1870-187l – Newspaper letter par Ballons Montés”
• Roberto Gottardi: “In the sky of Turin and its surroundings”
• Italo Greppi: “First flights to and from Italy”
• Carlo Milanesi: “Flights with helicopter in Italy”
• Emanuele Montagna: “Concorde: the giant of air”
All aroused keen interest and satisfaction among the visitors who then crowded the space of the Italian Post Office to buy the postcards made for the occasion.
At the same time, a second, almost identical, cancellation was available, again in Turin, at the Spazio Filatelia in via Alfieri. But the centenary was also commemorated on May 20 in Rome and May 27 in Borgo Faiti, in the province of Latina. In this regard, please refer to the AIDAFlash n.156 magazine, in which further details are reported.