Plate 7 from 'The collection of the most notable things seen by John Wilkins, erudite English bishop, on his famous trip from the Earth to the Moon... (Raccolta delle cose più notabili Vedute da Giovanni Wilkins erudito Vescove Inglese nel suo famoso viaggio dalla Terra alla Luna...): 'Pumpkins used as dwellings to secure against wild beasts' (Zucche che servono d'abitazioni per garantirsi dalle fiere)

Art Historical Context

This enchanting etching, *Plate 7* from Filippo Morghen's *Raccolta delle cose notabili Vedute da Wilkins* (after 1783), whisks visitors to an imagined lunar landscape where oversized pumpkins serve cozy dwellings, shielding inhabitants from wild beasts. Italian engraver Morghen, renowned for his precise reproductive prints, captures this whimsical scene with intricate detail,oking a sense of wonder at extraterrestrial life. The work draws from 17th-century English bishop John Wilkins' speculative treatise *The Discovery of World in the Moone (1638), an early work of proto-science fiction that pondered travel to and habitation on the Moon. Morghen's series, produced in the late Enlightenment era, reflects growing fascination with astronomy and other worlds, blending Wilkins' textual descriptions with vivid visual fantasy. Crafted in etching and aquatint—a technique Morghen mastered for its rich tonal gradations—the print's luminous quality enhances the surreal pumpkin homes amid starry skies. At the Metropolitan Museum of Art, it exemplifies how 18th-century printmaking democratized imaginative science, inviting all to dream beyond Earth.