Filippo Morghen (Italian, 1730 - after 1807)

This set of fanciful etchings is dedicated to William Hamilton, an envoy to the court of Naples. Morghen's exuberant rococo style, with ornamental passages of chinoiserie, makes for a curious and playful description of a voyage to the moon. There were many seventeenth-century treatises dealing with the possibility of a voyage to the moon. Morghen, perhaps through Hamilton, apparently knew that Philippe de la Hire (whose name appears in the title) did not believe the moon was inhabited. A later edition of the series substitued the figure of Bishop John Wilkins for that of Wild Scull (de la Hire's travelling companion). Wilkins had published The Discovery of a World in the Moone in 1638.

  thanks to dublog