FIREWORKS AND ALLEGORICAL FESTIVAL CULTURE IN SIXTEENTH-CENTURY ITALY.

Fireworks became an important part of festival culture in the sixteenth century, both celebrations at court and festivals connected to religious holidays. This essay considers the forms and uses of fireworks as well as how audiences perceived them. What may today be seen as mere explosions of fire and light tended to be understood allegorically in sixteenth-century Europe. Fireworks contributed to a wider, complex production of meaning at festivals, typical of the visual culture of the period and grounded in reigning concepts of nature and its materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]