Il Carnevale Italiano Mascherato Oue si Veggono in Figura Varie Inuetione di capritii Fra(nces) Bert(ell)
Medium
Book with 24 engraved plates, including title page
Dimensions
Overall: 6 1/8 x 3 15/16 x 3/8 in. (15.5 x 10 x 1 cm)
Classification
Books
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Purchase, Bequest of W. Gedney Beatty, by exchange, 2009
Accession Number
2009.456
Tags
Art Historical Context
Francesco Bertelli’s *Il Carnevale Italiano Mascherato* (1642) is a charming pocket volume that captures the lively spirit of Italian Carnival. Published as a book with twenty-four engraved plates, it presents a series of masked figures and whimsical costumes drawn from the festive traditions of seventeenth-century Italy. The compact format—roughly the size of a modern paperback—suggests it was intended for personal enjoyment, allowing viewers to flip through inventive “caprices” of dress and disguise wherever they wished. In the Baroque era, Carnival was a cherished public celebration marked...