La posta dei confinati, Controllo e censura postale al confino politico fascista 1926-1943

Published by Cosmo Iannone Editore in Isernia, Italy, Marco Occhipinti’s new book, La posta dei confinati. Controllo e censura postale al confino politico fascista 1926-1943 (Mail from the exiles. Postal control and censorship in fascist political confinement 1926-1943) (384 pages, 246 color illustrations, paperback, 16×24 cm, 29 euro), is now available, as of today, 31 March 2026.

Following the successful SFIZI.DI.POSTA. History through the mail, Mail through the history, published in 2023 by the same publisher and which garnered significant acclaim and appreciation, the Sicilian philatelist who lives and works in Lucera (Foggia, Italy) has released this new work, the result of twenty years of research into postal documentation and careful analysis of archives.

With a rigorous and well-documented analysis, in Italian language, this volume provides the first comprehensive and systematic examination of a frequently overlooked aspect of police confinement (a topic otherwise extensively covered in numerous essays and memoirs): the monitoring and censorship of correspondence by political confined people.

Police confinement, introduced by the fascist regime in November 1926 and soon transformed into political confinement, affected some 15,000 people up until 1943: anti-fascists, dissidents, subversives, and thus communists, socialists and anarchists, but also homosexuals, religious figures, nomads, vagrants, and even fascists who were too fascist. Anyone who did not toe the regime’s line was rendered harmless even before committing a crime: a report or denunciation was sufficient, and a special commission would proceed with the assignment to confinement without any trial.

We now have a remarkable record of those years, those people and those confinement colonies: the letters that the confined people wrote and received. Correspondence that the regime obviously had to check meticulously and, where necessary, censor.

The book treats all the confinement colonies (Ponza, Ventotene, Lipari, Ustica, Favignana, Lampedusa, Pantelleria, Tremiti, Pisticci) and some of the over four hundred confinement sites on the mainland. The key features of each are outlined, with particular attention paid to the methods of postal control and censorship through the cataloguing of all the postmarks used.

In connection with the various confinement colonies, the book features the biographies of fifty political exiles (from Giorgio Amendola to Eugenio Curiel, from Corrado Bonfantini to Nello Traquandi), illustrated with previously unpublished postal documents and material from the State Archives.

Particular emphasis is placed in the volume on women, whether directly (such as Maria Ciarravano, Lucia Bianciotto, Cesira Fiori, Giuseppina Callegari and Maria De Fanti) or indirectly (the wives and daughters of exiles who followed their husbands into confinement, as in the case of Luigi de Prospero or Lucio Mario Luzzatto) confined.

The foreword is written by Senator Giorgio Benvenuto, former secretary of the UIL trade union and a philatelist, who has linked his contribution to his personal memories of people and events directly or indirectly connected to fascist political confinement.

Short bio of the author, Marco Occhipinti

Of Sicilian origin (his mother is from Lentini and his father from Ragusa), he lives in Lucera, Italy, is married, and has two daughters. He is a geologist, the Italy manager for the Delcampe collectors’ marketplace, president of the CIFT (Italian Centre for Thematic Philately), and has been a philatelist for over forty years.

As a collector, he has compiled and exhibited dozens of collections in competitions in Italy and around the world, winning several gold medals and the title of Italian Champion of Thematic Philately.

He is the author or co-author of various philatelic publications (Expo 2015 Sustainability Project, PLEF 2015; Braille mail for the blind, AISP 2021), and has written articles and monographs for all philatelic magazines published over the last twenty to thirty years. He has spoken at conferences and meetings organized by private and institutional bodies, curated philatelic exhibitions, and has made numerous appearances on Rai Italian Television as part of the well-known broadcast GEO.

He has held and continues to hold positions in philatelic associations and federations, both as a commissioner and as a judge; he is the Italian federal delegate to the FIP for Open Philately.

He is the creator (in 2018) and editor of the blog Sfizi.Di.Posta, on the web and on Facebook, where it currently has over 30,000 followers. He is the author of the book SFIZI.DI.POSTA. History through the post, post through the history (Cosmo Iannone Editore, October 2023).