Some additional observations:
It appears that different, darker ink was used in the upper part of the check (where date, amount, payee, etc. and also what might be the ledger or booking number inside the blue Alfa Romeo stamp are stated) than in the lower part with the "Pagabile.." writing and Nuvolari's signature. But I do get the impression that the "Pagabile.." is written by the same hand that filled out the upper part of the check, but this hand writing seems to be distinct from both Nuvolari's signature and the writings in pencil on front and back. The pencil writings seem, based on the angle of the characters, to have been written by different persons. So, I'm guessing we see the writing of 4 different persons, of which one may have written on the check either with two different pens and/or on two separate occasions.
Looking at the printed part at the left side of the check, which seems to be named "Vale per cambiale con scadenza" (
Google translates this as "applies to bills maturing" while
Babylon translates it as "Applies to bill with expiry"), the first thing that stands out is that the cost of the check was 25.10 Lira (including taxes) but the stamp "Passa di Bollo per Cambiale" issues by what seems to be "Regno d'Italia (Italian Kingdom) is for 1 Lira, down-stamped from the originally printed amount of 1.65 Lira ("Una Lira e 60 Cmi").
On the left side, we also see a table with 3 columns that seem to read "Sino a 4 mesi" (up to 4 months), "Oltre 4 sino a 6 mesi PAGABILE" (from 4 to 6 months PAYABLE) and "Oltre 6 mesi od in bianco" (over 6 months or blank), each with 2 sub-columns refering to "Nello stato" (within the state) and "All'estero" (abroad). Only the "Sino a 4 mesi" column has printed numbers in them (and these are very hard to read, I'm guessing the "Nello Stato" field reads "Da oltre 24.000 a 25.000 Lira" (from 24,000 to 25,000 Lira) and the "All'estero" field reads "... a 50.000 Lira", the other sub-columns contain lines instead of amounts. So, the purpose of these columns and sub-columns is a bit of a mystery to me.
What surprises me is that, other than the handwritten number inside the blue Alfa Romeo stamp and the number in the red Banca Lombarda stamp, there are no numbers on this check that would make this check unique for registration or referencing in an official or private record book. Therefore, I assume this check is only a standardized form for formal compliance of an "I owe you." This may or may not have been necessary under the financial restructuring that took place at the time (see
this page and scroll down to Great Depression). And maybe, given the turmoil at the time, the only purpose of the standardized form was to standardize the size and appearance which would make large numbers of these papers much more manageable.
Whether or not we can make sense of this paper and/or link it to a specific transaction or event is almost beside the point: The document does give us some insight into how things were handled at the time, and that is already more than I knew a few days ago.