MASQUERADE (Ital. Mascherata, Fr. Mascarade), a species of amusement, common to most civilized countries, in which persons of both sexes mask or disguise themselves, and engage in dancing, festivities, and miscellaneous conversation. Masquerades are said to have been invented by Granacci, an Italian, in the beginning of the sixteenth century. At all events they were fashionable in Italy as early as 1512, when they were introduced into England in the reign of Henry VIII., as old Hall informs us in his Chronicle (4to, London, 1809, p. 526). He says, "On the daie of the Epiphanie at night (1512-13.) the king (Henry VIII.) with a xi. other were disguised, after the maner of Italie, called a maske, a thyng not seen afore in Englande, they were appareled in garments long and brode, wrought all with gold, with visers and cappes of gold & after the banket doen, these maskers came in, with sixe gentlemen disguised in silk" (which some take for the modern domino) "bearyng staffe torches, and desired the ladies to daunce, some were content, and some that knewe the fashion of it refused, because it was not a thyng commonly seen. And after they daunced and commoned together, as the fashion of the maske is, they tooke their leue and departed, and so did the queene, and all the ladies."