Riunione Adratica was an Italian insurance company specializing in fire insurance and cargo-transport insurance. The company was founded in 1838 in Trieste, which at that time was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. “Almost immediately branch agencies or representative offices were opened in Athens; Budapest; Graz, Austria; Leghorn, Lugano, and Milan, Italy; Berlin; […]
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Most of the buildings in Stockholm’s Old Town are still adorned with fire marks – plaques that showed that a building was insured in case of a fire. The signs, which depict a phoenix rising from the flames, were introduced in the 1740s. In the event of a fire, the fire brigade would […]
To my surprise, I found fire marks in my suburb! “Though long past are the days when the metal symbol of an insurance company affixed to the front of a house afforded its owner the only sure means of protection from loss by fire, these quaint marks are still occasionally […]
When I was in Annapolis I saw some oval plaques with images of trees, eagles, engines, etc. on some of the old buildings. I thought they were something exclusive to Annapolis, but when I returned to my suburb I found a couple of them there and realized it was something […]
