The Cage of Fools (La gabbia de' matti)
1557–63
Medium
Engraving
Dimensions
Sheet (Trimmed irregularly): 15 1/16 × 20 7/16 in. (38.2 × 51.9 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Purchase, Janice and Roger Oresman Gift, 2002
Accession Number
2002.51
Tags
Art Historical Context
In the bustling world of 16th-century Italian printmaking, Sebastiano di's *The Cage of Fools (La gabbia de' matti)*, created between 1557 and1563, stands as a vivid allegorical engraving. Measuring an impressive 15 1/16 × 20 7/16 inches on an irregularly trimmed sheet, this-scale work captures a chaotic enclosure teeming with human figures—men, women, children—alongside symbolic donkeys representing stubborn folly, skeletal reminders of death, and ships evoking precarious journeys through life. The title itself evokes Renaissance traditions of satire, trapping society's vices in a visual "cag...