Giuseppe Maria Mitelli. Il Mondo e per lo più gabbia di matti (1684).

‘The tradition of visually representing madness in the form of various icons, whether physiognomy, or body type, gesture or dress, points towards the need of a society to identify the mad absolutely. Society, which defines itself as sane, must be able to localize and confine the mad, if only visually, in order to create a separation between the sane and the insane.’

Sander L. Gilman

(In: Disease and representation:Images of Illness from Madness to AIDS. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1988, p. 45)