Fonte d'Amore was a prisoner-of-war camp outside Sulmona in the Abruzzo, operated by the Italian military during the First World War to hold Austro-Hungarian captives. Camp scrip of this kind was issued to prevent prisoners from accumulating Italian legal tender — a standard precaution, but the hyper-local printing arrangements make these notes genuinely provincial objects. Vecchioni's workshop in L'Aquila was a regional commercial printer, not a security press, which is why the handstamp functioned as the primary authentication device rather than any intaglio work.
The Franco signature appearing on 5-centesimi denominations places this among the lowest-value scrip in the Fonte d'Amore series — canteen money, effectively.
Fonte d'Amore was a prisoner-of-war camp outside Sulmona in the Abruzzo, operated by the Italian military during the First World War to hold Austro-Hungarian captives. Camp scrip of this kind was issued to prevent prisoners from accumulating Italian legal tender — a standard precaution, but the hyper-local printing arrangements make these notes genuinely provincial objects. Vecchioni's workshop in L'Aquila was a regional commercial printer, not a security press, which is why the handstamp functioned as the primary authentication device rather than any intaglio work.
The Franco signature appearing on 5-centesimi denominations places this among the lowest-value scrip in the Fonte d'Amore series — canteen money, effectively.