Michelangelo Sculpting
by FANTI, Sigismondo, Woodcut
This woodcut is from the Triompho di Fortuna (Triumph of Fortune) which was the second illustrated fortune-telling book to appear, after the popular Libro della ventura of Lorenzo Spirito, first published in 1482, had gone through several editions. Fanti’s book functions as a game in which the seeker follows cues that lead from figures of Fortune to houses and then to wheels, spheres, and astrologers, the path determined by either a throw of the dice or the time of day at which the book is consulted. The book was published in Venice in 1526.