Cleveland Museum of Art

Rhetoric (from the Tarocchi, series C: Liberal Arts, #23)

Master of the E-Series Tarocchi

Date

before 1467

Medium

engraving

Culture

Italy, Ferrara, 15th century

Department

Prints

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

This engraving is part of the group “C” named Liberal Arts . Conceptually, the liberal arts descended from classical antiquity, and were divided into the Trivium (Grammar, Rhetoric, and Dialectic or Logic) and the Quadrivium (Music, Geometry, Arithmetic, and Astronomy). In the Tarocchi set the total number was risen to ten, with the addition of the three disciplines (Poetry, Philosophy, and Theology). The liberal arts denoted knowledge or skills considered necessary to participate in a free society. By the late Middle Ages, they began to be represented in the visual arts as womanlike allegories. Here, Rhetorica (Rhetoric) is personified as a full-length female figure, in frontal view. She wears a crown and holds a sword in her right hand. On both her sides, two small genii blow a trumpet. Rhetoric teaches how to speak in a flowery and elegant way.

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