ABSTRACT
AN explanation of this picture would not be short or trifling if time or modesty allowed me to discourse at large on the masks of foolish men (called maschere in Italian) and what useless curiosities they are. Indeed, neither carts nor even ships could carry away the volumes that have been written on this subject since the founding of the world, in an attempt to bridle men's folly by means of wise opinion; so much so that almost every nation, Roman, Greek, and barbarian, just as it is compliant with its own vices, and, as I have said,1often becomes drunk, so it persecutes those who sincerely chide its evil practices.
