Prima Parte de' Fiori, e Disegni di varie sorti di Ricami Moderni, page 3 (recto)

Giovanni Battista Ciotti

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Written by Giovanni Battista Ciotti, published by Francesco de' Franceschi, Italian, active 16th century. From top to bottom, and left to right: Designed is decorated with a series of diamonds formed by ornamental borders and smaller diamonds containing flowers at each corner. Inside the central diamond is a winged figure running with a bow and arrow. Inside the other diamonds are circles containing stars and other linear shapes.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art