Emblem XLII — Nature as Guide

Not a riddle but a rule: track Nature, patiently, by your small light.

Work: from Atalanta Fugiens
Plate: Emblema XLII
Maker: Michael Maier; engraved by Matthäus Merian
Date: 1617
Source: Published Oppenheim, 1617 · scan: Wikimedia Commons

Emblema XLII

Format

The full-resolution scan, color-managed to the source plate — yours to print, study, and explore.

Size

$29.00

The story

A philosopher walks by lantern-light through the dark, following a woman's footprints — Nature going before him, a staff in his hand and spectacles on his nose. Emblem XLII of Atalanta Fugiens, 1617, sets out the book's whole method in one picture: let Nature lead, and use reason, experience, and reading as your lamp, staff, and glasses. Michael Maier wrote the verse; Matthäus Merian engraved the scene. Of the fifty emblems this is the one most quoted, because it is less a riddle than a rule — do not run ahead of the natural world, but track it, patiently, by the little light you have.

See it on your wall

The plate, in your home

Emblem XLII — Nature as Guide printed large and framed, hung in rooms like yours. Every edition ships ready to become the piece the room is built around.

Emblem XLII — Nature as Guide framed on the wall

About this reproduction

A faithful reproduction of a public-domain plate — from Atalanta Fugiens (1617), held by Published Oppenheim, 1617 · scan: Wikimedia Commons. The work was published before 1931 and is centuries out of copyright.
Printed to order on 200gsm EMA matte art paper; framed pieces sit behind acrylic, no mat.
Color-managed to the source scan; we correct nothing and invent nothing.
Ships in 5–10 business days, rolled in a heavy-wall tube (framed pieces ship flat-packed).
If it arrives less than perfect, we reprint or refund — your choice.

Why our plates cost more than a poster: we print from the highest-resolution scans available, at sizes where the engraving itself becomes visible — the emblem line, the letterpress bite, the registration of colour — on stock made to outlive its owner.

From the same hand