Figure 1.--This Italian postcard was captioned, "Colonia campestre di Via Bologna - La festa della pentolaccia." That translates as 'Field camp of Bologna Avenue - The piņata party.' Note one of the boys has a solid stick to wack the piņata. This was part of Brenner post card series B. It is not clear what the series was about, perhps a series on children's activities, but on the back it reads: "Associazione Genovese contro la tubercolosi" i.e. "Genoa association against tuberculosis". Thus the serie may be about fighting tuberculosis. The postcard is undated, but looks to us as if it was taken in the 1910s. The association was founded in 1905, so the date has to be some time after that. What confuses us is that their uniforms look more like a school than a summer camp uniform. An Italian reader tells us, "The photo probably depicts sick boys participating in a camp organized in Genoa. Thus seem more like a sanatorium than a summer camp. Via Bologna (Bolonia Street) runs along a great park. If this is correct, I think that the boys probably used the park for their outdoors activitis. Based on the way the adults are dressed, the photograph was probbly taken on a cold day, perhaps during the winter or early spring. When the weather turned warm, they probably dressed in lighter outfits to get the benfits of fresh air abd sunshine. |
