Trivulzio Cage Cup

The cup consists of two parts: an inner cup-shaped container and an outer cage that encloses it.^[1] The cup is made of colorless glass with shades of emerald green, light hazelnut, and dark blue.^[2] The outer cage has the shape of a delicate web of brown and blue glass circles linked with a cross motif at the points of contact.^[2] It is connected to the container by thin glass stems. Underneath the lip is a Latin inscription carved in light blue glass: BIBE VIVAS MVLTIS ANNIS (Drink and may you live many years), a convivial acclamation that, according to Filippo Buonarroti, the Romans were accustomed to carve on banquet cups.^[3]

The cup was probably realized by a specialized workshop in the vicinity of Milan, then capital of the Roman Empire, during the 4th century AD. It was part of a funerary trousseau discovered on 9 June 1675 in a sarcophagus in between the comuni of Mandello Vitta and Castellazzo Novarese, near Novara, Piedmont.^[4] After the death of its first owner, Everardo Visconti, the cup was sold to Abbot Carlo Trivulzio; a learned collector of ancient artifacts who, recognizing its value, purchased it in 1777.^[5]

The object acquired immediate fame after being described in the Italian edition of Johann Joachim Winckelmann's History of the Art of Antiquity (1779).^[6] The cup had caught the attention of the German scholar who became interested in the manufacture techniques of cage cups.^[7] The cup was purchased by the Municipality of Milan in 1935 and it is currently displayed at the Archaeological Museum, Milan.^{[citation needed]}