Content note: Dehumanizing animal metaphor for Germans: a serpent marked with Iron Crosses, blood dripping from its fangs, gripped by a hand. This object is shown as it was published. Why
Attenti! il serpente tedesco è preso! (Attention! The German serpent is caught!)
A hand clenches the neck of a serpent whose coils are patterned with Iron Crosses, blood dripping from its fangs, over the text 'Attention! The German serpent is caught! Now we must pull out its venom teeth!' The tell is a whole nation collapsed into one animal (dehumanising label) and an enemy military decoration pasted onto the creature's body so the emblem carries the stigma.
- Date
- 1919
- Period
- Interwar
- Made by
- Sponsor not named on the sheet; printed by F.lli Geroldi, Brescia, Kingdom of Italy; artist attributed by LOC to Samuil Samosud
- Region
- Western and Central Europe
- Country
- Kingdom of Italy
- Medium
- Poster
- Issuer type
- Mixed
- Regime
- Orlando Government
- Leader
- Vittorio Emanuele Orlando
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Demonize
- Themes
- War and the military, Media and information
- Event
- World War I
- Techniques
- Name-callingTransfer
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- Library of Congress, retrieved September 29, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain (published 1919; LOC: no known restrictions on publication)
F.lli Geroldi, Brescia, 1919. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZC4-12065.
Text on the object
attenti! il serpente tedesco è preso! bisogna ora strappargli i denti del veleno! F.lli GEROLDI - Brescia [artist's signature, illegible] [small star-shaped emblem with a numeral, lower right]
Attention! The German serpent is caught! Now we must tear out its venom teeth! Geroldi Brothers - Brescia
Lower-case lettering is as printed. The wavy signature at lower right and the numeral inside the small star emblem are not reliably legible.
