An album of prints of different subjects (RCIN 807473-807559 and 601934). The album was arranged originally by Cassiano Dal Pozzo (1588-1657), with 99 prints inlaid in 72 folios. 24 other prints were added later, possibly in the nineteenth century, mostly pasting the prints on the versos of the existing sheets and adding two additional folios (folios 73-74) at the end of the album. The 99 prints have been numbered 1-99 in pencil on the mount sheet above each print in a nineteenth-century hand.

This album is the most inventive of all Cassiano's compilations, with an arrangement based on interconnections of meaning created through similitude and difference. The themes explored in the album are broad, usually with one print introducing a thematic group: humans and trained animals (RCIN 807473-807475), theatre actors and commedia dell'arte (RCIN 807476-807479.c), beggars, street musicians and vendors (RCIN 807481-807487), seduction (RCIN 807488), theatrical characters (RCIN 807489-807492.p), anthropomorphic compositions (RCIN 807493-807503), Carnival/Lent (RCIN 807504-807507), pedlar (RCIN 807509), rebus (RCIN 807511), asinine subjects and proverbs (RCIN 807513-807518), deceit (RCIN 807520-807531), relations between sexes (RCIN 807532-807544), the senses (RCIN 807545-807552), miscellanea (RCIN 807554-807556).   

Most of the sheets of high-quality paper used to mount the prints measure around 550 x 440 mm. This album falls into the category of the Cassiano Dal Pozzo Type A mount albums, as 86 of the original 99 prints feature this form of mount, which is very recognisable and an irrefutable proof of provenance from Cassiano's collection. For all the mounts, a window was cut into the sheet a little smaller than the print intended for it and the print pasted on top. In a Type A mount, the aperture is cut with great precision and overlapped with the print by around 5 mm; the overlap was burnished on the back so the print would lay completely flat. The print is framed by a double-brown ink line and in this way isolated, which attracts the viewer's attention to what is being represented. Type B mounts (in this album RCIN 807473-807476.i; 807543; 807554-807556), although following the same window-mounting method, are much less elaborate and do not present framing lines. Type A mounts date between 1635 and 1638, but at some point it was decided not to continue with the expensive and time-consuming Type A.

Thirteen watermarks have been identified on the folios carrying prints, ten of which have already been published in the catalogue of the Paper Museum series.

For more information see Mark McDonald, The Print Collection of Cassiano dal Pozzo. I: Ceremonies, Costumes, Portraits and Genre, 3 vols, Royal Collection Trust 2017, part of The Paper Museum of Cassiano dal Pozzo: A Catalogue Raisonné.