“Nurseries of Vice and Folly”: Graphic Satires of Italian Opera in Early Eighteenth-Century Britain

Abstract

This article surveys several examples of visual, and especially graphic, satires of Italian opera in early eighteenth-century Britain. They often targeted other imported dramatic genres or non-dramatic types of entertainment, such as pantomime and masquerades; these were connected to Italian opera because of their immorality and the threat they posed to patriotism and national ethics. These images can be considered the visual equivalents of many contemporary printed satires and critiques. However, even if these documents are genuine iconotexts, including textual fragments under various guises, their iconic specificity enlarged the scope for various types of satirical discourse, as appears in the detailed study of a striking example of intericonicity.