number of the characters of those so-called Tarocchi cards occur as Atous in the pack of Tarocchi or Tarots, previously described. Of those old Italian engravings there are two series known to amateurs, agreeing in the subjects, but differing in their style of execution; though it is evident that the one has been copied from the other.[231] In one of them, which is considered by Bartsch to be the earliest, the date 1485 is inscribed on a tablet in the hands of the figure named Arithmeticha XXV.[232] In the other series, which is by much the best engraved, and is certainly the earliest, there is no date; and the figure which there represents Arithmetic, appears to be counting money. This series Mons. Duchesne thinks was executed about 1470; and some writers have supposed that the subjects were engraved by Tomaso Finiguerra. Zani, however, is inclined to believe that they were engraved at Padua; while Otley ascribes them to a Florentine artist. Seeing, however, that the names are in the Venetian dialect, and that authorities on the subject of old Italian engraving disagree with respect to them, I am inclined to suppose, without any regard to their style of execution, that they were either engraved by a Venetian artist, or for the Venetian market. It has also been supposed, but erroneously, that they were designed by Andrea Mantegna, to whom a number of other things of a similar kind have, with equal probability, been ascribed; and amongst the dealers in old engravings, at Paris, they are commonly known as Cartes de Baldini. Both the originals and the copies are of great rarity; and though several single subjects are to be found in the possession of amateurs, it is questionable if there be more than four collections in Europe, whether private or national, that have either the one series or the other complete. In the British Museum there is a complete series of the originals, and also forty-five of the copies; the five pieces wanting in the latter are: MISERO I, FAMEIO II, IMPERADOR VIIII, PRIMO MOBILE XXXXVIIII, and PRIMA CAUSA XXXXX. There is also a complete series of the originals, in the 'Bibliothèque du Roi;' and copies of them are given in the 'Jeux de Cartes Tarots et de Cartes Numérales,' published by the Society of Bibliophiles Français. Fac-similes of two,--PAPA X and RHETORICA XXIII,--are also given by Singer in his 'Researches into the History of Playing Cards.' From their size--about nine inches and three quarters high, by about four inches wide,--as well as from other circumstances, Mr. Singer considers that they were not intended for any game analogous to that of cards, properly so called. Mons. Leber considers them to have been merely "Cartes de Fantaisie," and observes that subjects so delicately engraved on copper, when the invention of the art was still recent, could scarcely have been intended to receive the colouring required for the completion of a pack of cards.[233] It, however, may