Page:De Vinne, Invention of Printing (1876).djvu/101

Rh 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