2020 Essays

Artificial Grottos

Ullman, Reut

Fifteenth and sixteenth-century artificial grottos were popular garden ornaments for Europe’s wealthiest elites. But in the late sixteenth century scholars have noted a growing prevalence of lightweight artificial grottos in theater productions and celebratory festivities. Multiple entries in Ms. Fr. 640 provide instructions for ornamenting an artificial grotto with lightweight materials. An historical study of literature thematically similar and contemporaneous to Ms. Fr. 640, followed by a reconstruction of the recipes for Grottes (Grottos) from fols. 40r and 118r, suggests that the artificial grotto the author-practitioner ornamented was likely intended for a festival.