Francesco Matraire was a

printer Printer may refer to: Technology * Printer (publishing), a person or a company * Printer (computing), a hardware device * Optical printer for motion picture films People * Nariman Printer ( fl. c. 1940), Indian journalist and activist * Jame ...

Turin Turin ( , Piedmontese language, Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital ...

, notable as the designer and producer of the earliest

postage stamp A postage stamp is a small piece of paper issued by a post office, postal administration, or other authorized vendors to customers who pay postage (the cost involved in moving, insuring, or registering mail), who then affix the stamp to the fa ...

s of

Sardinia Sardinia ( ; it, Sardegna, label=Italian, Corsican and Tabarchino ; sc, Sardigna , sdc, Sardhigna; french: Sardaigne; sdn, Saldigna; ca, Sardenya, label=Algherese and Catalan) is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after ...

and later

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

. Little is known of his life; his family is believed to have been from

Nice Nice ( , ; Niçard: , classical norm, or , nonstandard, ; it, Nizza ; lij, Nissa; grc, Νίκαια; la, Nicaea) is the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department in France. The Nice agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative c ...

originally, and his correspondence is mostly written in

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. In 1850, when

Piedmont it, Piemontese , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographics1_title2 ...

decided to adopt the use of stamps to prepay for postal service, their first thought was to inquire in

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about how stamps were designed and manufactured. But the report included a mention of an ongoing dispute over appropriate fees for engravers, so with only a couple months left before the stamps were to go on sale, the authorities turned to a local resource in the form of Matraire, whose prior experience was in labels for

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s and the general printing needs of Turin. Matraire did not have facilities for recess printing, so his first stamps were produced by

lithography Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German a ...

, later (1855) switching to

letterpress Letterpress printing is a technique of relief printing. Using a printing press, the process allows many copies to be produced by repeated direct impression of an inked, raised surface against sheets or a continuous roll of paper. A worker comp ...

. The authorities being concerned about

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, he proposed the embossing that was used in the stamps of 1853 and thereafter. The last stamp produced by Matraire was the 15c blue issued in February 1863. Thereafter he mostly disappears from history, although he was known to be alive in 1884.

References

* Roy A. Dehn, ''Italian Stamps: a Handbook for Collectors'' (

Heinemann Heinemann may refer to: * Heinemann (surname) * Heinemann (publisher), a publishing company * Heinemann Park, a.k.a. Pelican Stadium in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States See also * Heineman * Jamie Hyneman James Franklin Hyneman (born Se ...

, 1973) Italian printers Italian stamp designers Philately of Italy Year of birth missing Year of death missing {{philately-stub