Il Mondo al Roverscio, ossia Il Costume Moderno.
One sheet (40 x 46 cm, platemark 34 x 44 cm). Title at head, followed by three rows of engraved scenes (18 scenes total), each with a two-line engraved caption in Italian below, plus a schematic (but incongruous) depiction of the globe and its four corners at the center. Creases, with small closed tears at the center and a couple of very small holes skillfully restored. A remarkable survival of a rare print, very good overall. This separately published popular print offers a remarkable glimpse into the enduring “world turned upside down” theme, a potent satirical motif. The ancient theme, depicting the reversal of societal norms and expectations, traces its roots back to the iconography and literature of the Middle East, Greece, and Rome. It gained significant popularity during the Middle Ages and flourished in the Baroque era, continuously adapting to modern sensibilities. This 18th-century Italian print exemplifies the popular European satirical genre and features many of the familiar depictions of incongruity, all both amusing and deeply symbolic in their critique of established hierarchies: a carriage is driven by a horse and pulled by two men, the king goes on foot and the squire on horseback, sheep shear men, ladies serenade gentlemen, students teach masters, children discipline parents, lambs pursue lions, mice chase cats, animals work peasants, etc. (altogether 18 scenes). At the center of all these scenes is a schematic and somewhat inverted representation of the world, in which its continents look unrecognizable and the wind heads at its four corners are positioned blowing away from the sphere, not towards it. Popular Flemish, German, and Italian prints depicting the “world turned upside down” them have for centuries blended genuine impossibilities (adynata), like ships sailing mountains, with “unnatural” but possible behaviors that defied social norms. These latter depictions, such as women courting men or husbands doing housework, likely carried a greater ideological weight for elites. By portraying these inversions as unnatural and chaotic, popular prints taking up this theme thereby aimed to discourage behaviors that threatened established hierarchies of wealth and male dominance. Aurelio Rigoli and Annamaria Amitrano Savarese, in their catalog of Achille Bertarelli's popular print collection, suggest that this anonymous print originated from Remondini in the latter half of the 18th century, revising its prior attribution as a Milanese imprint. No records of this print traced in OCLC.
* A. Rigoli & A. Amitrano Savarese, Fuoco Acqua Cielo Terra (Vigevano, 1995), no. 864. See also: G. Cocchiara, Il mondo alla rovescia (Torino, 1963); P. Toschi, L’Imagerie Populaire Italienne du XVe. siècle au XXe. siècle (Paris, 1964), p. 125.
Price: $3,950.00