Emblem XXI — Squaring the Circle

The most famous diagram in alchemy.

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

Emblema XXI

Format

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

Size

$29.00

The story

A geometer sets his compass to square the circle around a man and a woman — the most famous diagram in alchemy. Michael Maier published it in 1617 in a book unlike any other: each of its fifty emblems came with an epigram and a fugue for three voices, alchemy set to be sung. The instruction hides in plain sight — begin with the square, pass through the triangle, arrive at the circle. Maier meant the image to be read, and heard, as one.

See it on your wall

The plate, in your home

Emblem XXI — Squaring the Circle printed large and framed, hung in rooms like yours. Every edition ships ready to become the piece the room is built around.

Emblem XXI — Squaring the Circle 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