ABSTRACT
From the eighteenth century, Don Quixote began to be read as a fable, as a moral satire which hid a sharp and witty critique disguised as a comedy. This way of reading the Cervantine novel was soon assimilated by the illustrators of the time (Charles-Antoine Coypel, amongst others), who transformed the quixotic episodes into allegorical images about Reason, Satire, Truth, Fame and Envy. The Knight of La Mancha was recognized and represented as the personification of Folly (Stultitia), from whose foolish acts the idle reader should learn fundamental lessons on Prudence. This chapter analyses such illustrations and allegories in relation to the visual tradition established by Alciato and Ripa mainly – a tradition which managed to create icons that everyone could read just as Cervantes himself did too.
