In 1690, the Italian nobleman Duke Ranuccio II Farnese celebrated his son’s marriage by staging one of the longest and most elaborate operas in history:_ Il Favore De Gli Dei _(‘The Favour of the Gods’), with music by Bernardo Sabadini and poetry by Aurelio Aureli. None of the music survives, but we still have Aureli’s libretto, which features thirteen engravings by the Bolognese artist Gianantonio Lorenzini. Among these is this design for a stage set, which shows a series of figures seated in a palace among a sea of Cumulus clouds. These are personified virtues and gods, presumably in the process of bestowing favour upon the lucky newlyweds. The best man’s speech and disco followed.
Stage set with allegorical figures seated among the clouds by Gianantonio Lorenzini from Aurelio Aureli's Il Favore De Gli Dei (1690), in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, US.
