The document provides context and key details about Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Cask of Amontillado". It describes the carnival setting in Venice where the characters meet. It explains some important symbols and objects referenced in the story, such as the cask of Amontillado wine, nitre encrusted on ancient walls, and the Montresor family coat of arms. It outlines the plot, with the two characters descending into the catacombs below the characters' palazzo in search of the Amontillado.

1. The Cask of Amontillado

2. Cask – a wooden container for wine

3. AMONTILLADO A DRY WHITE WINE

4. “ It was about dusk, one evening during the supreme madness of the carnival season.” SETTING

5. Carnival Season in Venice

7. “… his head was surmounted by the conical cap and bells .”

8. “ He had on a tight-fitting parti-striped dress, …”

9. P alazzo – a large, imposing building (as a museum or place of residence) esp. in Italy

10. “ I was so pleased to see him, that I thought I should never have done wringing his hand.”

11. “ A nd yet some fools will have it that his taste is a match for your own.”

12. “ T here were no attendants at home; they had absconded to make merry in honor of the time.”

13. Nitre is a potassium nitrate salt formerly known as saltpeter . Saltpeter is composed of the names “ Sal ” or salt, and “ Petrae ” or rock. Literally, salt of the rock. “… but observe the white webwork which gleams from the these cavern walls.” Nitre encrusted on an ancient jar an ancient vault or catacomb

14. Flagon or vase of De Grave , type of wine Trowel hand tool used by brick masons

15. MASONS Two definitions: A member of the fraternity of Freemasons, a worldwide fraternal organization OR One whose occupation is to build with stone or brick; also, one who prepares stone for building purposes. Symbol for the Freemasons

16. THE FAMILY ARMS “ A huge foot d’or, in a field azure; the foot crushes a serpent rampant whose fangs are imbedded in the heal.” FAMILY MOTTO “ Nemo me impune lacessit ” Translation: “ No one provokes me with impunity ” /A more colloquial translation into English would be “No one attacks me and gets away with it.”

17. “ We passed through a range of low arches ….”

18. “ We continued our route in search of the Amontillado, passed on, and descending again, arrived at a deep crypt, in which the foulness of the air caused our flambeaux rather to glow than flame.”

19. “ W e came at length to the foot of the descent, and stood together on the damp; ground of the catacombs of the Montresors.”

20. “ In Pace Requiescat”