Master of the E-Series Tarocchi
Italian, active c. 1465
The Merchant, plate four from The Ranks and Conditions of Men
INV-1145
Master of the E-Series Tarocchi
Italian, active c. 1465c. 1465
The Merchant, plate four from The Ranks and Conditions of Men
Master of the E-Series Tarocchi Italian, active c. 1465 →engravingprint
Date
c. 1465
Medium
Engraving on paper
Dimensions
Plate: 17 × 10 cm (6 3/4 × 3 15/16 in.); Sheet: 18.5 × 10.5 cm (7 5/16 × 4 3/16 in.)
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Location
Chicago, IL
Credit
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Potter Palmer, Jr.
The deck of fifty so-called Tarocchi are not tarots in the modern, fortune-telling sense, nor were they intended as playing cards. No cut-out impressions mounted for play are known, and they lack the suits and numbers of a regular deck. Instead, these delicately engraved didactic allegories are grouped in five numbered ranks describing the workings of the spheres of man, the muses, the liberal arts, the cosmos, and the heavens in order of increasing significance, and offer a didactic sequence to educate courtly youths or possibly university students, who could have used them as flashcards or a pamphlet.
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