There was a time, when Northern Italy was a tropical archipelago, formed by idyllic islands, with pink or white shores and crystal-clear emerald waters.

A small bit of paradise, that today we can see on postcards from the Maldives or the Caribbean.

That untouched paradise though, was far from being free of danger.

At that time (Early Jurassic) in those lands roamed a large theropod, the first known Ceratosaurid: Saltriovenator zanellai.

It was probably longer than 7 meters, definetly an animal you wouldn't want to encounter, during a morning stroll in a forest on the coast.

Lombardia is the region I live in, and I've always been fascinated by Saltriovenator's story, the first dinosaur to be discovered in my region. 

While I was painting this portrait of the dinosaur, I thought it could have been a funny idea to come up with a postcard design from the land of Saltriovenator: Tropical Lombardia!

So I designed the front and the rear of this fake postcard, paying attention to every detail: from the colours and the fonts (inspired by postcards from the 90s and the 60s), to the vintage textures. I also created a stamps and a custom postage stamp dedicated to Saltrio formation (the place where Saltriovenator was found).

I wanted to recreate every texture and every visual effect, even the smudged pen ink on the rear side.

Obviously "Tropical Lombardia" was a dangerous place to go on vacation, the unlucky tourist couldn't escape Saltriovenator's jaws.

On the upper part of the front side we can see that instead of seagulls, I put some flying pterosaurs. Those pterosaurs are Eudimorphodon ranzii, a flying reptile that also inhabited Lombardia during the Early Jurassic.