Geometry (Geometria XXIIII)

Master of the E-Series Tarocchi

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Hovering above an imaginary landscape, a pregnant Geometry describes a square, triangle, and circle in the sky. The print belongs to the so-called E-Series Tarocchi Cards, a title that reflects an early misidentification of the cards with the Renaissance game of Tarocco (a precursor to Tarot). It is instead one of a set of fifty early Italian engravings illustrating the breadth of Renaissance knowledge. The group is divided into five series of ten cards covering: the Conditions of Man; Apollo and the Nine Muses; the seven liberal arts alongside the sciences of astrology, philosophy, and theology—which includes Geometria; the Cosmic Principles; and the Firmaments of the Universe.

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