Nostalgias of Malta: 5 - Tapa blanda

This is the fifth in the series of Nostalgias volumes by Giovanni Bonello in which he lays before the reader handsome sets of photographs taken by artists, mainly Maltese but also some foreigners as is the case of this volume, who recorded the appearance of the landscapes and seascapes of the Maltese Islands and, to a smaller extent, that of the people who inhabited them in the late 19th century and in the first half of the last century. Handsomely bound and elegantly designed like its predecessors, Nostalgias of Malta - Images by Modiano from the 1900s , should serve as a useful work of reference or one of those books through which it is pleasant simply to leaf idly. Early in 1902, four years after the introduction of picture postcards in Malta, local booksellers, stationers and souvenir shops started offering the public a new series of cards produced by an Italian publishing house - G. Modiano e Co, Milano. The first known Maltese Modiano card went through the post on April 2, 1902. Business must have been quite encouraging as in no time, various Maltese outlets began marketing these postcards with their own imprint alongside, or instead of, the Modiano one. The present Nostalgias volume includes a complete record of every Maltese Modiano picture recorded so far.