fantoccio

Updated: July 11, 2025

But the latter half of the century was getting rather ashamed of the towers with their circular or spiral paintings, which had delighted the eyes and the hearts of the other half, so that they had become a contemptuous proverb, and any ill-painted figure looking, as will sometimes happen to figures in the best ages of art, as if it had been boned for a pie, was called a fantoccio da cero, a tower-puppet; consequently improved taste, with Cecca to help it, had devised for the magnificent Zecca a triumphal car like a pyramidal catafalque, with ingenious wheels warranted to turn all corners easily.

George Eliot - Romola

But I won't leave the deck in dirty weather like this till the captain knows where he is." Towards sunset it got clearer, and they drifted past a revenue cutter, who was lying to with her head to the northward. She hoisted no end of signals, but they understood none of them, and her captain gesticulated wildly on her deck. "What is that Fantoccio dancing at?" inquired Captain Robarts brutally.

Charles Reade - Hard Cash