Cuccagna

Giuseppe Pozzi 1697-1752

Disegno della seconda machina rappresentante una cuccagna a similitudine di quelle che si fanno nej felicissimi regni delle Due Sicilie

1757

Etching

45.3 x 64.7 cm

Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles

Cuccagna monuments were built as the centrepiece for Italian festivals of the 17th and 18th centuries. 

A wood scaffolding base was covered with meat, sweets, bread and other food – forming a spectacular edible tower. 

When the order was given, the townspeople would storm the Cuccagna and grab what food they could.

This Cuccagna monument was erected for the celebrations in Rome on June 29, 1757, held after the presentation of the white "chinea" or ceremony of homage paid to Pope Benedict XIV

It was commissioned by Don Lorenzo Colonna, ambassador extraordinary of Carlo di Borbone, King of Naples and the Two Sicilies.

Cuccagna or Cockaigne  was a land of plenty in medieval myth, an imaginary place of extreme luxury and ease where physical comforts and pleasures were always immediately at hand and where the harshness of medieval peasant life did not exist. 

All the restrictions of society or morality  were defied

Different types of Cuccagna monuments are prevalent in modern conclaves