Most of the early prints are certainly of an extremely rude type, consisting chiefly of mere outlines of figures; in the one case of saints, copied from the illuminated Missals, and in the other, of characters for playing cards similar to the foregoing fac-simile, afterwards coloured in imitation of paintings. Very probably they may have been made, in the first instance, by means of stencil plates; if not, the impressions were obtained from the engraved blocks by friction, after the Chinese manner. Whichever was the method adopted, the ‘Brief-malers’ or card painters of Germany seem to have run their Italian brethren hard in the race of competition in the first half of the Fifteenth century, as we learn from a decree of the Government of Venice, bearing date the 11th October 1441; which, after stating that the art and mystery of making cards and printed figures had fallen into decay, from the numbers printed out of Venice, ordains--“That it be ordered and established, according to that which certain masters had supplicated, that from this time in future no work of the said art that is printed or painted[24] on cloth or on paper, that is to say, altar pieces, images, and playing cards, and whatever other work of the said art is done with a brush and printed,[25] shall be allowed to be brought or imported into this city under pain of forfeiting the works so imported, and xxx livres and xii soldi,[26] of which fine one-third shall go to the state, one-third to Signor Giustizieri Vecchi, to whom the affair is committed, and one-third to the accuser.” The worthy magistrates of Venice were excellent Protectionists in their day and generation; but this antique method of printing, either from engraved wooden blocks, or with stencilling plates and brushes, had soon to give way to the newer art of Typography; and twenty-eight years after the promulgation of this decree we find printed works issuing from the press of John and Vandeline of Spire, established in Venice in the year 1469. It is a moot point among antiquarians when playing cards were first printed. The commonly received opinion of their invention in 1392 for the amusement of the insane King, Charles VI of France, is decidedly erroneous.[27] On this subject Mr. Planché writes,--“There is plenty of evidence to prove that cards, drawn, painted, and gilded by the hand, like those of Jacquemin-Gringonneur, and to which the name of ‘Tarot cards’ has been given, found their way into Europe from the East in the Fourteenth century, or perhaps earlier; but they had nothing in common with those to which we are accustomed, although they might have suggested them, and the fact in no wise affects the question of printing by means of wood-blocks only.”[28]