Mr. Ottley, having at the very outset of his Inquiry adopted Papillon’s story of the Cunio, is compelled, for consistency’s sake, in the subsequent portion of his work, when speaking of early wood engravings such as the above, to consider them, not as the earliest known specimens of the art, but merely as wood engravings such as were produced upwards of a hundred and thirty years after the amiable and accomplished Cunio, a mere boy and a girl, had in Italy produced a set of wood engravings, one of which was so well composed that Le Brun might be suspected of having borrowed from it the design of one of his most complicated pictures. In his desire, in support of his theory, to refer the oldest wood-cuts to Italy, Mr. Ottley asks: “What if these two prints [the St. Christopher and the Annunciation] should prove to be, not the productions of Germany, but rather of Venice, or of some district of the territory then under the dominion of that republic?” His principal reasons for the preceding conjecture, are the ancient use of the word _stampide_--“printed”--in the Venetian decree against the introduction of foreign playing-cards in 1441; and the resemblance which the Annunciation bears to the style of the early Italian schools. Now, with respect to the first of these reasons, it is founded on the assumption that both those impressions have been obtained by means of a press of some kind or other,--a fact which remains yet to be proved; for until the backs of both shall have been examined, and the mark of the burnisher or rubber found wanting, no person’s mere opinion, however confidently declared, can be decisive of the question. It also remains to be proved that the word _stampide_, which occurs in the Venetian decree, was employed there to signify “_printed with a press_.” For it is certain that the low Latin word _stampare_, with its cognates in the different languages of Europe, was used at that period to denote _impression_ generally. But even supposing that “_stampide_” signifies “printed” in the modern acceptation of the word, and that the two impressions in question were obtained by means of a press; the argument in favour of their being Italian would gain nothing, unless we assume that the _foreign_ printed cards and figures, which were forbid to be imported into Venice, were produced either within the territory of that state or in Italy; for the word _stampide_--“_printed_,” is applied to them as well as those manufactured within the city. Now we know that the German card-makers used to send great quantities of cards to Venice about the period when the decree was made, while we have no evidence of any Italian cities manufacturing cards for exportation in 1441; it is therefore most likely that if the Venetians were acquainted with the use of the press in taking impressions from wood-blocks, the Germans were so too, and for these more probable reasons, admitting the cuts in question