The 22-year-old face. Constantine’s Tessera di Riconoscimento — recognition / identification card — from the Regia Università di Roma (Royal University of Rome), Faculty of Medicine and Surgery, issued May 5, 1938 (Year XV of the Fascist Era). Matriculation No. 15141. The card opens to a mounted black-and-white portrait photograph of Constantine at 22 — dark hair, white collar shirt, jacket, looking confidently into the camera — clipped to a typeset/handwritten facing page that records his civil identity.
The Italian state’s recorded facts about Constantine
R. UNIVERSITÀ DI ROMA — TESSERA DI RICONOSCIMENTO
del signor: Jeannopoulos Constantine Lazare figlio di: Lazare nato a: Mitelyne (Grecia) immatricolato studente del: terzo Anno della Facoltà di MEDICINA E CHIRURGIA il giorno: 5 maggio 1938-XV
FIRMA DELLO STUDENTE: Constantine Jeannopoulos Il Direttore Amministrativo + IL RETTORE (signed)
Why this card matters for the citizenship case
The Italian state — through the Royal University of Rome’s administrative office — records in its own hand:
- “nato a Mitelyne (Grecia)” — born in Mytilene, Greece. Italian-state documentation of Greek birth on the body of an enrolled-student ID card.
- “figlio di Lazare” — son of Lazare. Italian-state documentation of the paternal lineage that anchors the jus-sanguinis chain.
- “terzo Anno della Facoltà di MEDICINA E CHIRURGIA” — third year of the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery. Constantine had enrolled in Rome by autumn 1936 at the latest (third year by May 1938).
Combined with the explicit “nazionalità: greco” line on the 1937 Perugia foreigners’ card, the two Italian-state documents together establish that Constantine was operating as a Greek national in Italy from 1937 onward, not as an American — despite holding US derivative citizenship since 1931.
The 22-year-old face
This is the second-earliest preserved photograph of Constantine in the public archive (after the 1943 US Army Signal Corps ID at age 27). At 22 he is recognizably the same person — same dark hair, full face, formal attire — but five years younger and on Italian, not American, soil. The Rome years between this photograph and the next preserved one (Carlisle Barracks, 1943) cover the final pre-war medical training, his graduation with 110/110 from the Università di Roma in 1941, his marriage to Sophie that same year, and the SS Excalibur crossing to New York.
