From "Bizzarie di varie Figure" 1624

This etching is one of a series of whimsical prints by Giovanni Battista Bracelli, dating from around 1624. Bracelli was working in Livorno, Italy, at a time when the Medici family was attempting to revive the port city as a centre for trade and the arts. Here we see two figures constructed of geometrical shapes and given human form. One wears a fool’s cap, while the other is in the form of a skeleton who scratches its head in dismay. These prints are called ‘Bizzarie’ because they play with the conventions of the figure drawing taught in academic art. But there is also something darker at work. These were years of plague and famine, and so the skeleton was very much a figure in the popular imagination. We can look at the history of costume, medicine and the carnival to understand more of what Bracelli was up to in these strange and thought-provoking images.