Athlete Statue - Rome, Italy - Philatelic Photographs on Waymarking.com

The fifth International University Games were held in Turin from the 1st to the 10th of September 1933. Just prior to their start, Italy issued a set of four stamps promoting the games. All four values had the same design but different colors. The design featured two items from the then brand new Foro Italico (originally called the Foro Mussolini): the massive Mussolini Obelisk located at the entrance and one of the sixty marble statues of athletes that adorn the Stadio dei Marmi, the ‘Stadium of the Marbles.’ As it turned out, Italy dominated the competition with Germany running a close second.

The Foro Italico was only partially complete in 1933 and played no part in the University Games, so the stamp design was also a way to show off the new sports complex and the Fascist preoccupation with fitness and athletic competition. The entire complex was bristling with Fascist symbolism, and you can see the silhouette of the fasces on the stamps. The Stadio dei Marmi was one of the venues that had been completed by 1933 and had already appeared on an earlier postal issue commemorating the Graf Zeppelin’s 1933 flight to Italy.

The Stadio dei Marmi is adorned with sixty larger-than-life Carrara marble statues of various athletes engaged in a variety of sporting events. They are the work of 24 different sculptors and represent donations from every province of Italy. Sometimes, the statues represent sports common to the area such as climbing and skiing in the northern provinces, but mostly they show swimmers, divers, gymnasts, javelin throwers, boxers etc. And there are a few whose sporting event is difficult to determine.

The statue seen on the stamp depicts a soccer player holding a ball. Though difficult to see on the stamp, the statue is holding a 12-panel soccer ball similar to the ones used for the 1930 World Cup. The statue was carved by sculptor Bernardo Morescalchi in 1931 and represents Catanzaro in the southernmost part of the country. It is physically located at the far end of the track and is sometimes referred to as statue #25.

Stamp Issuing Country: Italy Date of Issue: 16-Aug-1933 Denomination: 20c Color: rose red Stamp Type: Single Stamp Relevant Web Site: Not listed

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