[Description and drawings of the masquerade that took place at the Royal Theater of S. Carlo during the Carnival of the year 1827. The evening of February 25 on the occasion of the great dance party. Naples, from the Royal Printing House, 1827] Folio; 20 pp. (text), Thirty-nine plates: the last one is a very large folding plate extending to 233 cm. The lithographic plates are engraved by Cuciniello and Bianchi and hand-coloured by Luigi Morghen. At the beginning, some texts are dedicated to Dante, Petrarca, Ariosto, and Tasso and the list of members of nobility participating in each quadrille and to the Persian procession. Contemporary half calf, gilt spine. Some foxing but a good copy. This extremely scarce festival book refers to the Carnival at Naples in 1827, when the king Francesco I attended a great masquerade ball. Two different ceremonies took place on that occasion: the ball was performed on February the 25th in the San Carlo theatre, but eight days before, another one was organised in the Accademia Delle Dame e Dei Cavalieri. In the former, the central theme was the Persian court; in the latter, the Parnaso of the Italian Poetry (Dante, Petrarca, Ariosto, Tasso). Morghen sketched the magnificent clothing and provided Domenico Cuciniello and Lorenzo Bianchi with the drawings for the lithographic plates. Morghen himself eventually hand-coloured them. Both of the ceremonies were described: the text of the first account (19 pp.) was published with 11 coloured plates and one large folding plate (more than 200 cm); the text of the second one (4 pp.) with 20 coloured plates. Our edition, with 39 plates, includes the illustrations of both the ceremonies and some more quadrilles not depicted before. The 39 plate-editions are extremely rare and not recorded by the bibliographies. Coloured plates in order: Corte di Persia. 1. Lo Schah 2. La Gran Sultana. 3 + 4. Figli / Figlie dello Schah. 5 + 6. Due Sultane. 7. Il Gran Visir. 8. Il Daroga custode dell' Harem, ossia capo degli Eunuchi. 9. Altra Sultana. 10. Grandi del Regno. 11. Guarde del Corpo. Quadriglie delle Nazioni. 12 + 13. Scozzese. 14 + 15. Francese. 16. Napoletana. 17 + 18. Tartara. 19. Guerriero dell'epoca di Dante. 20. Dante. 21. Beatrice. 22. Paolo Malatesta. 23. Francesca da Rimini. 24. Guerriero dell'epoca di Petrarca. 25. Petrarca. 26. Laura. 27. Troubadour. 28. Ninfa di Valchiusa. 29. Guerriero dell'epoca di... 30. Ariosto. 31. Ginevra. 32. Rugiero. 33. Bradamante. 34. Guerriero dell'epoca di Tasso. 35. Tasso. 36. Eleonora. 37. Rinaldo. 38. Armida. 39. Very large folding plate