the centre of the sheet, bordered by the perforation, depicts the icon of Our Lady of Philermos, kept in the Papal Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli, in Assisi (Umbria), where the Order’s pilgrimage traditionally takes place at the beginning of September, on the anniversary of the birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Assisi icon is a copy, probably made in Russia by Tsar Nicholas I around 1852, and entrusted to the Franciscan fathers of Assisi who exhibited it from 1925 in the rebuilt sanctuary of Mount Philermos in Rhodes. It was then transferred to the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli in 1948, when Rhodes became part of Greece.

The stamp is completed by the inscriptions ‘SOVRANO MILITARE ORDINE DI MALTA’ and ‘POSTE MAGISTRALI’, the emblem of the Order’s activities and the face value ‘€ 2.90’. Under the stamp, on two lines, there is the inscription ‘ICONA DELLA MADONNA DEL FILEREMO, BASILICA DI SANTA MARIA DEGLI ANGELI, ASSISI’.

The sheetlet also bears, at the top, the Order’s coat of arms, on the left, and that of the activities, on the right. At the bottom centre, on two lines, the heading ‘SOVRANO MILITARE ORDINE DI MALTA’ and ‘POSTE MAGISTRALI’.