Part 7
The modern printer takes his proof on dampened paper with a tool known as the proof-planer. This proof-planer is a small thick block of wood, one side of which is perfectly flat and covered with thick cloth. When the paper, which must be dampened, has been laid on the inked type or engraving, the printer places the planer carefully on the paper, holding it firmly with his left hand; with a mallet, held in his right hand, he strikes a strong hard blow on the planer. He then lifts his planer carefully and places it over the nearest unprinted surface and repeats the blow. In like manner he repeats the blow until every part of the type surface has been printed. Rude as this method may seem, a skillful workman can obtain a fair print with the planer. Although the wet paper clings to the type, and the ink is sticky, great care is needed to prevent the slipping of the sheet, and the doubling of the impression. The back of a thick sheet printed in this manner often shows a shining appearance in the places where the blow was resisted by the face of the type or by the engraved lines.
It will be seen that the printer’s method of taking proof differs in all its details from the supposititious method of the [p085] early engravers. We have soft, damp paper, sticky ink, and a sudden flat pressure against a hard surface shielded with cloth, in opposition to fluid ink, dry paper, rubbing pressure and an elastic printing tool.
As we can find no positive knowledge of the method of printing which was adopted by the early printers of engravings on wood, it is somewhat hazardous to offer conjectures in place of facts. It is begging the question to assume that they were not printed by a press. The presswork of early prints is coarse and harsh, and could have been done with simple mechanism, with rude applications of the screw or of the lever, that could have been devised by any intelligent workman. It is more reasonable to assume that the early prints were made by a press, or with some practicable tool like a proof-planer, rather than with the impracticable frotton. One cannot resist the suspicion that the chronicler of early block printing who first described the frotton attempted to describe what he did not thoroughly understand—that he mistook the engraver’s inking cushion for the tool by which he got the impression.
It should be noticed that all these old prints are of a religious character. Portraits of remarkable men or women, landscapes, representations of cities or buildings, caricatures, illustrations of history or mythology—none of these are to be found in any collection of the earliest prints. The early engravers were completely under the domination of religious ideas. Their prints seem to have been made with the permission, and possibly under the direction, of proper clerical authority. The designs are of much greater merit than any that could have been created by amateurs in the art of engraving on wood. They were, undoubtedly, copied from the illuminated books of piety which were then to be found in all large monasteries. Ecclesiastics of this period were careful of their books and jealous of their privileges, and not disposed to allow either to become cheap or common, but they must have favored an art that multiplied the images of [p086] patron saints. It was an age of great disbelief, and the image prints were of service as reminders of religious duty.
There is no evidence that these prints were made by the monks themselves. There is a statement current in German books of bibliography that one Luger, a Franciscan monk in Nordlingen, engraved on wood at the end of the fourteenth century. But this statement needs verification. It is not at all certain that the word which is here translated engraver on wood was written with clear intention to convey this meaning. The earliest typographers were not monks, nor were they favored with the patronage of the church.[22] It is not probable that any monk who had been educated for the work of a copyist or an illuminator, would forsake his profession for the practice of engraving on wood or printing. Prints, as then made, were coarse, mechanical copies of meritorious originals. The artistic scribe rightfully felt that engraving was beneath him. He must have looked on the people who bought image prints with the same pitying scorn that a true artist feels for the uneducated taste of those who now buy glaring lithographs of sacred personages, and he must have felt as little inducement to engage in their manufacture.
And yet the multitude received them gladly. Wealthy laymen who could afford to buy gorgeous missals, and priests who daily saw and handled manuscript works of art, might put the prints aside as rubbish; but poor men and women, whose work-day lives were unceasing rounds of poverty and drudgery, unrelieved by art, ideality or sentiment, must have hailed with gladness the images in their own houses which shadowed ever so dimly the glories of the church and the rewards of the righteous. The putting-up of the image print on the wall of the hut or the cabin was the first step toward [p087] bringing one of the attractions of the Catholic church within the domestic circle. It was the erection of a private shrine, an act of rivalry, pitiable enough in its beginning, but of great importance in its consequences. For it was the initiation of the right of private judgment, and of the independence of thought which, in the next century, made itself felt in the formidable dissent known in all Protestant countries as the Great Reformation.
Our knowledge of the origin of engraving on wood has not been materially increased by the recent discovery of the _Berlin_ and _Brussels Prints_. We see that wood-cuts of merit were made during the first quarter of the fifteenth century, but we see also that they could not have been the first productions of a recently discovered or newly revived art. They present indications of a skill in engraving which could have been acquired only through experience. One has but to compare them with wood-cuts made by amateurs in typographic printing in Italy, Germany and Holland between the years 1460 and 1500, to perceive that the manufacturers of the image prints were much more skillful as engravers. If there were no other evidences, we could confidently assume that this skill could have been acquired only by practice on ruder and earlier engravings. Of this preliminary practice-work we find clear traces in the stenciled and printed playing cards which were popular in many parts of Europe before the introduction of images.
[p088]
V
Printed and Stenciled Playing Cards.
Playing Cards not made by the Frotton . . . Their Manufacture an Industry of Importance . . . Decree of the Senate of Venice prohibiting the Importation of Cards . . . Early Notices of Card-Making in Germany . . . Probable Method of Manufacture . . . Illustrations of a Playing Card of the Fifteenth Century . . . Jost Amman’s Illustrations of a Print Colorer and an Engraver on Wood . . . Playing Cards made from Engraved Blocks . . . Early Notices of Card Playing in France . . . Cards Prohibited to the People in France and Spain . . . Introduced in Italy in 1379 . . . Not Invented in Germany . . . An Oriental Game . . . Illustrations of Chinese Cards . . . Originated in Hindostan . . . Transmitted to Europe through the Saracens . . . Popularity of Cards in Europe . . . Cards Denounced by the Clergy . . . New Forms and New Games of Cards, with Illustrations . . . Unsuccessful Attempts to make Cards a Means of Instruction . . . Cards not an Unmixed Evil . . . Induced Respect for Letters and Education . . . Cards probably made before Images . . . Made by Block-Printing . . . Most largely made by this process in Germany.
* * * * *
After innumerable experiments and disappointments, the art so eagerly sought and so sorely needed was at last discovered. And what is strange, although in accordance with the capriciousness of invention, this art that had eluded all the efforts and aspirations of intelligence, was discovered by makers of cards. It was by them, and for the peculiar requirements of their work, that xylography was invented.
_Bibliophile Jacob._
* * * * *
The hypothesis, for it is nothing more, that all the early prints were produced by the frotton does not satisfactorily explain the large production of merchantable printed matter during the first half of the fifteenth century. Friction would have served then, as it does now, for trial proofs or experiments, but it was a method altogether too slow and uncertain to meet the requirements of an extended business. The playing cards and prints so common during this period must have been made by a quicker method. That there was an established international trade in playing cards and in other kinds of printed work, as early as the year 1441, may be inferred from the following decree of the senate of Venice: [p089]
1441, Oct 11. Whereas, the art and mystery of making cards and printed figures, which is in use at Venice, has fallen to decay, and this in consequence of the great quantity of printed playing cards and colored figures which are made out of Venice, to which evil it is necessary to apply some remedy, in order that the said artists, who are a great many in family, may find encouragement rather than foreigners: Let it be ordained and established, according to the petition that the said masters have supplicated, that from this time in future, no work of the said art that is printed or painted on cloth or paper-that is to say, altar-pieces, or images, or playing cards, or any other thing that may be made by the said art, either by painting or by printing-shall be allowed to be brought or imported into this city, under pain of forfeiting the work so imported, and thirty livres and twelve soldi, of which fine one-third shall go to the state, one-third to Giustizieri Vecchi, to whom this affair is committed, and one-third to the accuser. With this condition, however, that the artists who make the said works in this city shall not expose the said works for sale in any other place but their own shops, under the penalty aforesaid, except on the day of Wednesday at S. Paolo, and on Saturday at S. Marco.[23]
The engraved images here noticed were probably prints of saints or sacred personages like those of which engraved illustrations have been given on previous pages. The altar-pieces were prints upon cotton or linen cloth, of a similar character, but of much larger size.[24]
Playing cards, which are twice mentioned in the decree, seem to have been considered as of equal importance with images and altar-pieces. The specification of three distinct kinds of printed work, coupled as it is with the allusion to “any other thing that may be made by the said art,” is an intimation that the manufacturers, “who were a great many [p090] in family,” were even then applying the art of printing and colored stenciling to many other purposes.
The decree says that the art had fallen to decay. When it was in its most prosperous condition in Venice cannot be ascertained from the record, nor from any other source. The author[25] who found this document says that he had fragments of coarse engravings on wood which represented some parts of the city of Venice as they appeared before the year 1400. He thinks these rude engravings must have been cut in the latter part of the fourteenth century. That they could have been made at this time is not improbable, but the direct evidence is wanting. There are, however, abundant reasons for the belief that engravings on wood were made in Venice, not experimentally, but in the way of business, many years before the decree of 1441. And they must have been made elsewhere. The printers of playing cards and colored figures must have been many in family beyond as well as in Venice. If the foreign printers had not been formidable competitors, there would have been no request for the prohibitory decree.
Nothing is said in the decree about the nationality of the foreign competitors, but we may get this knowledge from another source. An authentic record of the town of Ulm in Germany contains a brief entry which tells us that playing cards in barrels were sent from that city to Sicily and Italy, to be bartered for delicacies and general merchandise.[26] [p091]
The same book contains a defense of the game of playing cards under the date of 1397. Another old German record, the Burgher Book of Augsburg for the year 1418, specifically notices card-makers. The Tax Book of Nuremberg, for the years 1433 and 1435, names Eliza, a card-maker. The same book, for the year 1438, mentions Margaret, the card-painter. The words _kartenmacherin_, card-maker, and _kartenmalerin_, card-painter, which are found in these books, do not clearly specify the process. It has been suggested that these cards could have been drawn and painted by means of stencil plates.
The word _formschneider_, form-cutter, the word now used in Germany as the equivalent of engraver on wood, appears for the first time in the year 1449, in the books of the city of Nuremberg. The same records mention one Wilhelm Kegler, _briftrucker_, or card-printer, under the date of 1420. They also mention one _Hans Formansneider_, in the year 1397, but Formansneider should not be construed as engraver on wood. It should be read Hans Forman, _schneider_ or tailor. In this, as in some other cases, it will be seen that the facility of the German language for making new words by the compounding of old ones, is attended with peculiar disadvantages. The manufactured words are susceptible of different meanings.
These notices of card-making are not enough to prove that the process employed was that of xylography. They prove only that card-making was an industry of note in the towns of Ulm, Augsburg and Nuremberg. But when these notices of early card-making are considered in connection with early German prints, like the St. Christopher of 1423, which were discovered in the vicinity of these towns, there is no room for doubt. If prints of saints were made by engraving on wood, cards should have been made by the same art. The connection of cards and image prints in the decree of the Senate of Venice is evidence that they were made by the same persons and by the same process.
It may seem strange that the little town of Ulm, in the heart of Germany, should establish by a long sea route a trade [p092] in playing cards with cities on the Mediterranean and the Adriatic. It is but one of many evidences of the growing spirit of commercial enterprise which pervaded all the cities of Germany. It is not more strange than the fact that, in 1505, merchants of Augsburg, a city at a great distance from navigable waters, joined with the Portuguese in an extensive traffic with the eastern coast of Africa.
Playing cards may have been made at as early dates in other countries besides Germany and Italy. We shall soon see that they were in common use in many parts of Europe at the beginning of the fifteenth century, but we have no certain knowledge that they were made from engraved blocks in other places. Our knowledge of the fact that they were printed in Italy and Germany is based entirely on occasional notices in old manuscript records. We have indications that they were printed, but we lack the proof. There are no cards in existence which can be offered, with any degree of confidence, as specimens of the block-printing of 1440. The xylographic cards of which fac-similes are most common in books which treat of pastimes, are of the sixteenth century; the copper-plate cards described and illustrated by Weigel and Breitkopf were made either during the latter half of the fifteenth or in the sixteenth century.
The engraving on the following page is a fac-simile of one of a set of forty-eight playing cards now preserved in the British Museum. The entire set, printed on six separate sheets of paper, eight cards to each sheet, was found in that great hiding-place of discarded sheets, the inner lining of a book cover, for which, to adopt the bookbinder’s phrase, it served as a stiffener. The sheets may have been rejected for imperfections, and put in the book cover because they were unsalable. The book in which they were found was printed and bound by some unknown or undescribed printer before the year 1500.[27] If rudeness of engraving could be considered [p093] as sufficient proof of superior antiquity, this card should be rated as one of the oldest pieces of engraving on wood. The cutting of this block could have been done by any carver on wood, or even by a carpenter. But the quality of the engraving is not a proper criterion of the condition of the art of engraving on wood during the period in which it was made. It is obviously a cheap card, made for the uses of people who could pay but a small price. There may have been other reasons for the rudeness of the work. The stiff and conventional manner of drawing the figures may have been as popular then as a similar method of designing playing cards is at this day.
Dull red and dark green were the only colors used in illuminating this set of cards. They were laid on with brush and stencil. The stencil is one of the oldest forms of labor-saving contrivance for abridging the labor of writing or drawing. It was used, as has been stated, in the sixth century by a Roman emperor who could not write; it was used for the same purpose by Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, and by the emperor Charlemagne. It is used to this day by merchants who mark boxes, in preference to writing, printing, branding, or painting. It has advantages of cheapness and simplicity that commend it to all manufacturers. It is even used by publishers of books for tinting maps, fashion plates, and illuminated pamphlet covers.
Jost Amman, in his Book of Trades, has presented us a representation of the print stenciler, as he practised his work [p094] in 1564. The method here shown is, probably, the method in general use in 1440, for the coloring of playing cards and image prints. We see the bowls that contain different colors, with their proper brushes, on top of the chest. The colorer is sweeping the brush over the perforated metal plate, and filling up the outlines of the print. The neat pile of sheets before him and near his right hand shows that he is working with precision and with system. Stencil painting was work of care and neatness, but it was so simple that we can clearly understand that it could have been done by women in Nuremberg as effectively as it is done now.[28]
The illustration of the engraver on wood which appears in the same _Book of Trades_ puts before us a man in a richer dress, plainly a workman of higher grade than the stencil painter. He seems to be tracing outlines on the block. The technical accessories about this engraver are the same as those in use at this day—the graver, the whetstone, and, possibly, a water globe lens in the corner near the window casement.[29] [p095]
Playing cards and engraving on wood bear to each other a curious relation. The introduction of the cards in Europe was soon followed by the revival, or as Bibliophile Jacob of Paris characterizes it, by the invention, of engraving on wood. Whatever differences of opinion may exist as to whether the art was revived or invented, it is certain that playing cards were the means by which early printing was made popular. Cards were the only kind of printed work which promised to repay the labor of engraving. People who could neither read nor write, and who had no desire to be taught either accomplishment, derived great pleasure from them. There was no other kind of printed matter, not even the image prints, which found so many buyers in every condition of society. The fixing of the earliest practice as a regular business of engraving on wood in Europe depends, in some degree, on the fixing of the date of the first introduction of playing cards. The determination of this date has been made a national question, and the theme of books containing much curious information.
Ambrose Firmin Didot[30] quotes a scrap of poetry from a French romance of 1328, which alludes to the folly of games of dice, checkers and cards. Other French writers maintain that playing cards were in use in France as early as 1350. [p096] Bullet says that playing cards were used in France in the year 1376. But the testimony in confirmation of these dates is ambiguous and insufficient. The first unequivocal notice of playing cards in France is to be found in an account book for the year 1392, kept by one Charles Poupart, treasurer to Charles VI. In this book is an entry to this effect: “Paid to Jacquemin Gringonneur, painter, for three packs of cards, gilded, colored, and ornamented with various designs, for the amusement of our lord the king, 56 sols of Paris.” The mind of Charles VI had been seriously affected by sunstroke, and these cards were provided for his lucid intervals during which he suffered from melancholy. We are not told how these cards were made—whether they were first drawn by hand, or whether they were printed from cut blocks before they were painted. The price paid was not small: fifty-six sols of Paris in 1393 would be equivalent to one hundred and fifty francs in 1874. In 1454, a pack of cards purchased for the Dauphin of France cost but five sous of Tours, the equivalent of twelve or thirteen francs of modern French money.[31] The difference in these prices is some indication of a cheapened manufacture.
The earliest and most convincing evidence of the popularity of playing cards in Paris is contained in an order of the provost of that city, under the date of 1397, in which order he forbids working people from indulging in games of tennis, bowls, dice, cards, or nine-pins on working days. That the game was then comparatively new is inferred from the omission of playing cards in an ordinance of the city of Paris, for the year 1369, in which other popular games were minutely specified.
The Cabinet of Prints attached to the National Library at Paris contains seventeen cards which are supposed to be the relics of the three packs made for Charles VI by Gringonneur; but these cards were, without doubt, drawn by hand. This cabinet has no printed cards which can be attributed to the [p097] fourteenth century. Its oldest relics of this kind are eighteen printed cards which may have been made in France during the reign of Charles VII, or between the years 1442 and 1461.[32]
Playing cards seem to have been popular in Spain before they were known in France. They were supposed to be so demoralizing to the people, that John I, king of Castile, in the year 1387, thought it necessary, to prohibit them entirely. To have acquired this popularity, the cards should have been made by some process as economical as that of printing. We have, however, no knowledge that the cards were printed. They could have been made by stencils. Chatto says that the relics of playing cards which he thought were the oldest were made exclusively with stencils.
Cards were known in Italy as early as 1379. An old manuscript history of the town of Viterbo, which states this fact, says that “In this year, a year of great distress [occasioned by the war between the anti-pope Clement VII and the pope Urban VI], was brought into Viterbo, the game of cards, which came from the land of the Saracens, and by them is called Naib.” [p098]