The German card-makers of Augsburg, Nuremberg, and Ulm, it is stated, sent large quantities of cards into Italy; and it was probably against those foreign manufacturers that the fellowship of painters at Venice obtained an order in 1441 from the magistracy, declaring that no foreign manufactured cards, or printed coloured figures, should be brought into the city, under the penalty of forfeiting such articles, and of being fined xxx liv. xii soldi. This order was made in consequence of a petition presented by the Venetian painters, wherein they set forth that “the art and mystery of card-making and of printing figures, which were practised in Venice, had fallen into total decay through the great quantity of foreign playing-cards and coloured printed figures, which were brought into the city.”[II-4] It is hence evident that the art both of the German _Kartenmacher_ and of the _Formschneider_ was practised in Venice in 1441; and, as it is then mentioned as being in decay, it no doubt was practised there some time previously. [Footnote II-4: “Conscioscia che l’arte e mestier delle carte & figure stampide, che se fano in Venesia è vegnudo a total deffaction, e questo sia per la gran quantità de carte a zugar, e fegure depente stampide, le qual vien fate de fuora de Venezia.” The curious document in which the above passage occurs was discovered by Temanza, an Italian architect, in an old book of rules and orders belonging to the company of Venetian painters. His discovery, communicated in a letter to Count Algarotti, appeared in the Lettere Pittoriche, tom. v. p. 320, et sequent. and has since been quoted by every writer who has written upon the subject.] Heineken, in his “Neue Nachrichten,” gives an extract from a MS. chronicle of the city of Ulm, completed in 1474, to the following effect: “Playing-cards were sent _barrelwise_ [that is, in small casks] into Italy, Sicily, and also over sea, and exchanged for spices and other wares. From this we may judge of the number of card-makers who resided here.” The preceding passage occurs in the index, under the head, “Business of card-making.” Heineken also gives the passage in his “Idée Générale,” p. 245; but from the French translation, which he there gives, it appears that he had misunderstood the word “_leglenweiss_”-- barrelwise--which he renders “en ballots.” In his “Neue Nachrichten,” however, he inserts the explanation between parentheses, (“das ist, in kleinen Fässern”)--i. e. in small casks; which Mr. Singer renders “hogsheads,” and Mr. Ottley, though he gives the original in a note, “large bales.” The word “lägel,” a barrel, is obsolete in Germany, but its diminutive, “leglin,”--as if “lägelen”--is still used in Scotland for the name of the ewe-milker’s _kit_.