A parade float in Reggio, Italy: "Carro trionfale della Compagnia di S. Rocco" (The Triumphal Carriage of the Company of St. Roch). Plate 2b from A. Isacchi, "Relatione di Alfonso Isachi intorno l'origine, solennità, traslatione, et miracoli della Madonna di Reggio [...]" published by Flaminio Bartoli, Reggio.

About this artwork

Research in Progress

Art Historical Context

This print depicts an elaborately carved parade float drawn by two oxen across an open space. The structure features ornate scrollwork, columns, and a raised platform crowded with figures in period dress, some holding objects that suggest religious or civic symbols. A large unfurling banner across the top bears the inscription “Carro trionfale della Compagnia di S. Rocco,” identifying the float as belonging to the Company of St. Roch. The image is rendered in fine black lines on paper, with careful attention to the decorative details of the carriage and the harnessed animals. Created by Giovanni Luigi Valesio around 1619, the print served as an illustration in Alfonso Isacchi’s published account of the origins, processions, and miracles associated with the Madonna of Reggio. Valesio, active in early seventeenth-century Italy, specialized in such documentary images that recorded local festivals and devotional events. The plate captures a specific moment in Reggio’s civic and religious life, when confraternities like the Company of St. Roch contributed ornate floats to public celebrations. Housed in the Smithsonian American Art Museum, this work offers today’s visitors a glimpse of how early modern Italian communities expressed faith and civic pride through spectacle. Its precise lines preserve both the artistry of the float and the spirit of the procession it commemorates.