A Unicorn Attacks a Deer; a Lynx Kills a Hare

This is a drawing from around 1500, kept in the Uffizi's famous cabinet of prints and drawings. Its little scene reads like an emblem: a unicorn drives at a deer while, close by, a lynx brings down a hare. Contests of real and fabled animals like these were common currency around 1500, worked into tapestries, engravings and the margins of books, where each creature carried a familiar meaning and the unicorn in particular stood for purity. The author of the sheet is not recorded. It belongs to the vast graphic collection the gallery has gathered since the days of the Medici, most of which stays in storage and comes out only for study or a change of display.