Duerer Engraves Melencolia I
1514
In Nuremberg the goldsmith-printmaker Albrecht Duerer cut an engraving of a winged figure slumped amid compasses, geometrical solids, and a hungry dog. Melencolia I fused alchemy, mathematics, and northern melancholy into a single baffling image. Scholars have been puzzling over its meaning ever since. Its magic square and truncated polyhedron have generated theories ranging from alchemical allegory to a meditation on the limits of knowledge.
In context
Also in 1514 (3 other events on record)
- Selim Crushes the Safavids at Chaldiran · Middle East · War
- Gyorgy Dozsa's Peasant Crusade · Europe · Politics
- Duerer Engraves Saint Jerome in His Study · Europe · Culture
Before and after in Europe
Before and after in Culture
Era
Renaissance (1501–1650), one of 715 events from that era on Saeculum.