[Footnote I-35: It has been conjectured that the following passages in the travels of Marco Polo might suggest the idea of block-printing, and consequently wood engraving: “Gradatim reliquos belli duces in digniorem ponit statum, donatque illis aurea et argentea vasa, tabulas, privilegia atque immunitatem. Et hæc quidem privilegia tabulis vel bracteis per sculpturas imprimuntur.” “Moneta magni Cham non fit de auro vel argento, aut alio metallo, sed corticem accipiunt medium ab arbore mori, et hunc consolidant, atque in particular varias et rotundas, magnas et parvas, scindunt, atque regale imprimunt signum.”--M. Pauli Veneti Itiner. lib. ii. capp. vii. & xxi. The mention of paper money impressed with the royal stamp also occurs in the Eastern History of Haython, an Armenian, whose work was written in 1307, in Latin, and has been printed several times, of which the last edition is by And. Müller, Colon. 1671, 4to.] [Footnote I-36: An article on Marsden’s “Translation of the Travels of Marco Polo,” in the Quarterly Review, No. xli. May, 1819, from p. 191 to 195, contains some curious particulars respecting the early use of the mariner’s compass, and of gunpowder and cannon in Europe.] That the art of engraving wood-blocks and of taking impressions from them was introduced into Europe from China, I can see no sufficient reason to believe. Looking at the frequent practice in Europe, from the twelfth to the fifteenth century, of impressing inked stamps on paper, I can perceive nothing in the earliest specimens of wood engraving but the same principles applied on a larger scale. When I am once satisfied that a man had built a small boat, I feel no surprise on learning that his grandson had built a larger; and made in it a longer voyage than his ancestor ever ventured on, who merely used his slight skiff to ferry himself across a river. In the first volume of Papillon’s “Traité de la Gravure en Bois,” there is an account of certain old wood engravings which he professes to have seen, and which, according to their engraved explanatory title, were executed by two notable young people, Alexander Alberic Cunio, _knight_, and Isabella Cunio, his twin sister, and finished by them when they were only sixteen years old, at the time when Honorius IV. was pope; that is, at some period between the years 1285 and 1287. This story has been adopted by Mr. Ottley, and by Zani, an Italian, who give it the benefit of their support. Mr. Singer, in his “Researches into the History of Playing Cards,” grants the truth-like appearance of Papillon’s tale; and the writer of the article “Wood-engraving” in the Encyclopedia Metropolitana considers it as authentic. It is, however, treated with contempt by Heineken, Huber, and Bartsch, whose knowledge of the origin and progress of engraving is at least equal to that of the four writers previously named.