Apollo, plate 20 from Apollo and the Muses

These engravings, part of a “deck” of 50 images that resemble playing cards, were probably created in Ferrara. The enigmatic series is organized into five thematic groups: Conditions of Man, Apollo and the Muses, Arts and Sciences, Geniuses and Virtues, and Firmaments of the Universe. Not intended as tarot or playing cards, these tarocchi were most likely used as a didactic iconographical source or model book. Apollo, though crowned and seated on a celestial sphere, is shown in an unusual manner, alongside swans and what could be an ornamented mirror.