Art Institute of Chicago

The Emperor, plate nine of The Ranks and Conditions of Man

Master of the E-Series Tarocchi

Date

c. 1465

Medium

Engraving on paper

Culture

Italy

Department

Prints and Drawings

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

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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