Description
This postage stamp was issued as part of a joint issue with Italy and Vatican City for the Giornata della Lingua Italiana (Celebration Day of the Italian Language) in 2009. It depicts a scene from the beginning of Inferno in which Dante (accompanied by Virgil in this illustration but not in the text) is blocked by three beasts. The scene is taken from a miniature in Codex Urbinate Latino 365, a fifteenth-century manuscript in the Vatican Library. Each stamp is printed adjacent to a label with the second line from Inferno 1: "mi / ritrovai / per una / selva / oscura," (I found myself in a dark wood). The first and third lines of Inferno appear on the Vatican City and Italy stamps, respectively. The stamp was designed by Mauro Olivieri and Orlando Tomassi and printed by the Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato.
Denomination: 0,60 (0.60 EUR)
Perforation: 13 ¼ × 13 (comb)
Printing process: Rotogravure
Print run: 600,000