The relationships between intuition, axiomatic method and formalism in Hilbert's foundational studies has been discussed several times, but geometrical ones still have unclear sides and there is not a commonly held opinion.In this article we try to frame Hilbert’s geometrical works within a historical context. The aim is to show that intuition and nature of the axioms in \emph{Grundlagen der Geometrie} do not derive from a mature philosophical awareness of the author, but from the development of a historical path of the idea of geometry and of its foundations. The path begins with the discovery of non-Euclidean geometry and finds in Hilbert’s work its final and definitive synthesis for Euclidean geometry
