The Holy Mountain, folio 3 from The Holy Mountain (Monte Sancto di Dio)
1477
Medium
Engraving in black with letterpress on verso, on ivory laid paper
Dimensions
Plate: 25.7 × 18.5 cm (10 1/8 × 7 5/16 in.); Sheet: 27.5 × 18.9 cm (10 7/8 × 7 1/2 in.)
Classification
engraving
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
29763
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
A pair of prints from opposite sides of the Alps demonstrates the didactic capabilities of devotional printmaking. Both depict a sacred mountain that the soul must climb toward heaven. In Baccio Baldini’s extremely early engraved book illustration of an Italianate ladder of virtues, a monk successfully ascends, while a fashionable young man is dragged away by a demon representing worldly pleasures. Its thistle-laden German counterpart (1947.473) consists of banderole rungs filled with xylographi...