{"product_id":"antique-dante-alighieri-cigar-box-label-gold-embossed-chromolithograph","title":"Antique Dante Alighieri Cigar Box Label Chromolithograph Gold Embossed Tobacciana 1900s 🚬","description":"\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/g4ZHg4kdIfQ\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize: 8 3\/4\" x 8 1\/4\" ~\u003c\/strong\u003e Unused, never applied to a box. They vary a little one to the next.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🚬 The Label\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis cigar box inner label is printed DANTE in large gold capitals over a crimson field with gold pin-stripe rules, a round medallion portrait of Dante Alighieri in profile — laurel wreath, red robe — and two small crowned shields, one with a pale gold lily on red, the other with a fleur-de-lis. The gold is embossed, raised right off the paper, and the back shows the whole design in blind relief, mirrored, with no ink at all.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🏛️ Dante, and the Lily of Florence\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDante was already a taken name in the cigar trade by 1910 — a new registration for it was refused that year because the name was already claimed. The lily shield is close to Florence's own coat of arms as it stood before 1250-51: the city's lily was white on red until the victorious Guelphs flipped the colors to the red-on-white you'd recognize today. So this label carries Florence's older arms, from before the city's own civil war changed them — a nice detail for a Florentine poet's cigar. Dante Alighieri himself was born in Florence in 1265 and banished from it in 1302, and he wrote the Divine Comedy in exile. He died in Ravenna in 1321 and he's still there - Florence built him an empty tomb in the Basilica of Santa Croce in 1829, and Ravenna has never handed him back.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🎭 Why a Poet on a Cigar Box\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCigar brands of the period reached for names that said something about the smoker — European, literary, a cut above. A brand carrying Dante's own portrait, laureled like a poet-laureate and flanked by Florentine heraldry, would have needed no translation for the Italian-American neighborhoods of the industrial Northeast in these years, and I'd bet that's exactly who it was meant to speak to.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🖨️ How It Was Made\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eChromolithographs like this one took a separate stone for every color, each one ground and registered by hand before the sheet went through the press again, and the embossed gold was a separate die-stamping pass after the color work was finished. Lithography houses of the period kept flat sample books and proof sheets of what came off their presses as a record for salesmen — a good many of those survive today and turn up in the same collecting category as labels like this one.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/antique-1900s-wizard-gold-embossed-cigar-label-halloween-black-cat-magic\"\u003eAntique Wizard Cigar Box Label 🧙‍♂️ Gold Embossed Chromolithograph 1910s Black Cat Halloween Art\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/antique-vintage-1900s-1920s-selector-embossed-cigar-label-treasures\"\u003eAntique Selector Cigar Box Label J.M. Martinez Co. American Lithographic New York 1900s - 1920s Embossed Tobacco Ephemera 🚬\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/antique-vintage-1900s-1920s-lucky-bill-cigar-box-label-back-flap-uncommon\"\u003eAntique Lucky Bill 🍀 Gold Embossed Cigar Box Back Flap Label NOS 1900s Green Red Victorian\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40866865283237,"sku":"VAG-7062465446053","price":15.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.3349789054_ua8j.jpg?v=1785355070","url":"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/antique-dante-alighieri-cigar-box-label-gold-embossed-chromolithograph","provider":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","version":"1.0","type":"link"}