This short methodological note deals with picture postcards as sources of contemporary history. The author investigates three slightly different cases out of the Italian colonial production which all belong to the same typology of falsification due to the mercenary motives of the publishers. The three examples under exam have in common the captions all asserting a subject other than the one of the picture: street musicians of Tripoli instead of Eritrean musicians; a Libyan girl instead of a Tunisian girl; an Ethiopian medicine-man instead of an old Zulu.

Luigi Goglia, in "MONDO CONTEMPORANEO" 2/2005, pp. , DOI: