At the beginning of the last century postcards were used not only to send greetings from more or less distant places, but to record everyday life, from the people look to the new and old means of transport to the changes in the urban landscape.
The more than 7000 postcards collection owned by the Fondazione Neri is an extremely valuable historical source, it can be consulted by researchers and students or simply by enthusiasts and – of course – all the visitors of the Italian Museum of Cast Iron in Longiano (FC). These fascinating black and white or colour pictures, often yellowed by time, are filled with hundreds of different cast iron product types used for the decoration of the city, from street lights for public lighting to fountains and large kiosks for outdoor music performances.
The primary objective of this collection is to demonstrate the wide use of such objects in a period from the late nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth whilst, at the same time, to serve as documentary support for some of the pieces part of the Italian Museum of Cast Iron collection. It’s the case – for instance – of the big chandeliers of Piazza Ducale in Vigevano or the ones of Piazza Navona in Rome, as well as unique exhibits like those lighting the staircase of the Montagnola in Bologna, but also those of Porta Venezia in Milan and the O'Connell bridge in Dublin.