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Master of the E-Series Tarocchi

The Merchant, plate four from The Ranks and Conditions of Men

c. 1465
Engraving on paper
17 × 10 cm (6.7 × 3.9 in)

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In the collection of Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago · as of July 2026

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FROM THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO’S CATALOG

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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