The meagre notices of card-makers and card-painters in old town-books of Germany and in the decree of Venice do not tell us whether cards were made before or after image prints. Those who have written most learnedly on this subject,[38] tell us that the cards were made before the images; that at first they were drawn and painted by hand; that they were afterward colored by stencils; that when this method was found too slow, blocks were engraved and printed; and that the image prints were subsequently introduced for the purpose of counteracting the evil influences of cards. These propositions are ingenious, but it must be confessed that we have no certain knowledge that the improvement was made in this order. This theory of gradual development is based on conjecture, and its best support is derived from a consideration of the fact that cards were in common use before we have any indications of the existence of image prints. That the cards should have been made by engraving before the images seems reasonable when we consider that the workmanship of the cards was of a much ruder nature. The experimenting amateur who knew that he was unable to cut a block like that of the _St. Christopher_, would readily undertake to engrave the spots and face figures of the earlier cards. Breitkopf, an expert type-founder and a writer of authority, stands almost alone in his opinion that playing cards were [p108] made after the image prints. He says that the engravers who made cards also made images, and he adds the curious fact that in some places cards and images were called by the same name.[39] The curt and careless manner in which the business of card-making is mentioned in the old records is an indication that the process used was not novel. We do not find in the writings of any author of the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries a statement that the earliest playing cards were made by a new art. That they were made by block-printing at the beginning of the fifteenth century in Italy and Germany seems clearly established. That they were made at a corresponding period in Spain and France, where cards were as common, cannot be proved. It is probable that the Germans derived their knowledge of cards from Italy, but the evidences of an early manufacture by printing are decidedly in favor of southern Germany, a district in which the most famous image prints have been found, and which, at a later period, was the birthplace of many eminent engravers on wood. [p109] VI The Chinese Method of Printing.