'Lord Curzon's Notes on Persia: About 1889-1890' [‎688v] (1397/1486)

574
JOURNAL OR THE SOCIETY OR ARTS.
[May 10 , 1889 .
tinctivesuit signs of cups, money, swords, and
batons, as in the older tarot cards.
I refer again to the Italian chronicle, which
gives the year 1379 as tha t of their intro
duction into Viterbo, only to note that it
speaks of them as coming from the Saracens,
who called them “ Naib,” and we have a
survival of this word in the name “ Naipes,”
by which designation playing cards are known
in Spain at this day.
We have, however, to deal now more with the
period when playing cards, in the form in which
they are familiar to us, were first known in
the country from whence they reached us.
We may with certainty place this date as the
middle of the 15 th century, and the wars of that
country with Spain may well have enabled the
knowledge of them to pass from the one country
to the other.
In the absence of actual proof of the date
of introduction of the suit signs known as
the French, or “ Piquet,” and to us as
hearts, spades, diamonds, and clubs, we
have to bridge over a considerable interval
to reach the middle of the 15 th century,
when we have numerous existing examples
of cards bearing those signs, two of the
earliest of them are here shown ; and it is
to this period that so much interest attaches
as that co-incident with the invention of
the art of wood engraving. With this in
vention, and the means which it gave for easy
and rapid multiplication, we may well look for
an expansive growth and use of playing cards.
It has been said that the wood-engravers pro
duced blocks for cards before they produced
those for Bibles, and we may well believe this
to have been the case, for the recreations of
the people have always had a more easily
accessible place than their religion. The
15 th century is that of the invention of en
graving on wood and on metal, by either of
which method design could be multiplied in
definitely ; and when printing, full grown
and equipped, sprang into existence, it found
waiting for it the art of the engraver to aid, by
graphic delineation, the wondrous spread of
knowledge of which it was to prove the
creator.
Going onward, to find a period for the intro
duction of cards into England which should
be somewhat approximate to the date of the
invention of wood engraving and of printing,
we reach the reign of our King Henry VI. ;
and the constant wars between this country
and France under Charles VII., and the
crowning of Henry VI. at Paris as king of
France, furnishes us with an easy conjecture
as to the time and circumstance under which
trench cards would find their wayinto England,
and serve as the models thereafter for the
cards manufactured there. We now, however,
reach the region of fact, and have docu
mentary proof in support of dates, for in
a list of articles, the exportation of which
was prohibited, mentioned in an Act of the
3 Edward IV., 1463 , passed for the protection
of the tradesmen of London, we find “cards
for playing ; ” proving their familiar use before
that period. From this time onward we find
frequent mention of them in legal enactments,
made in protection of the home manufacture,
and for the regulation of the pastimes of the
people ; and it is, among other items, amusing
to find that when James IV. of Scotland came
a-wooing Margaret, the daughter of Henry
VII., he found her playing at cards !
It could not have been long after the in
vention of wood engraving that the idea of
colour, in imitation of the art of the painter,
came to supplement it, and we find in the
earliest block books that colour is applied to
the printed outline by means of a brush,
either direct or by stencil. In Nuremberg,
early in the 15 th century, forme Schneiders
(or block cutters), and karten mahlers (or
card painters), were working together, and
the painter under this description was the
workman who, by means of brush and stencil
plate, coloured outlines, whether of Bibles or
playing cards, which had been produced from
w r ood blocks.
Italy and Germany were not far apart in
point of date in the production of printed
playing cards, and we find in both countries,
in the middle of the 15 th century, various
protective laws in favour of the workmen
who were engaged in their manufacture in
these two countries. I pass over the period
from 1450 to the end of the 18 th century,
or a period of 250 years, during which
there would not appear to have been any
material changes in the method of manufac
ture of cards, while the materials employed
remained the same.
Up to within the last twenty years it was the
universal belief in England among the makers
of playing cards that a good card could not
consist of less than four sheets of paper,
following in this the traditional trade rule of
the French makers, from w'hom our manu
facture has come. But the changes incident
upon fashion and example from other coun
tries have altered this, and we have, to-