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.
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:
