Euterpe, plate eighteen from Apollo and the Muses

Discussion

FROM THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO’S CATALOG

This engraving comes from a set of 50 cryptic tarocchi (tarot) cards that neither tell fortunes nor constitute a modern deck of cards. Instead, these didactic flashcards illustrate the abstract forces affecting mankind. The sequence Apollo and the Muses includes Euterpe, the Muse of music, shown here with her attribute, the double flute. She was later known as the Muse of lyric poetry. The Muses were typically invoked at the beginning of an epic poem, as in Canto II of Dante’s Inferno : “O Muses, O lofty genius, aid me now!”

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