174 
NOTES ON THE EARLY HISTORY OF ENGRAVING. 
[Nature and Art, June 1, 1867. 
century,” adding in a note, “such playing-cards, 
however, were in use in Germany” (the writer 
does not * state whence obtained) “ as early as the 
year 1275.” 
To those who at all consider the state of anarchy, 
darkness, and misery which prevailed in Germany 
during the whole period of the Middle Ages (a state 
of things which compelled the Hanseatic League to 
establish itself, in order to afford points of refuge 
for the ordinary interests of trade), and the low con- 
dition of Arts and Letters, which was the natural 
accompaniment of this national debasement, it 
might very naturally occur to doubt the proba- 
bility of this barbarous region being the seat of an 
important and interesting invention, calculated in 
a greater degree than any other to foster the arts 
of peace, and promote the intellectual advancement 
of the world. But, apart from the suggestions 
of common sense, there have been made, within 
the last half-century, a vast amount of curious 
researches, the result of which tends to show that 
the original seat of the art of wood-engraving was 
very distant from that so unhesitatingly accepted 
by the “ Encyclopaedia Britannica 3 ” and that its 
course was not from the dreary wastes of Central 
Germany to the more enlightened West and 
South of Europe, but from the ancient seats of 
civilization in the far East, through northern Italy, 
and thence through Western Europe into Germany. 
In other words, it is contended by recent writers, 
Papillon, Singer, the late Mr. Ottley, and others, 
that the use of this invention is of remote date in 
China and Japan ; and that it was through Venice, 
which, as is well known, carried on an extensive 
commerce with those countries, and was the me- 
dium of communication between them and the 
commercial ports of the West and North of Europe, 
that it was introduced amongst us. 
On the other hand, in opposition to this view, it 
has been gravely contended that there is no evi- 
dence to show that the Chinese themselves were 
acquainted with this art as early as the thirteenth 
century, much less of their having communicated 
such knowledge to the Venetians. 
It has been urged that Marco Polo, in his cele- 
brated account of China, written in 1295, after his 
return to Venice, makes no mention of this art 
amongst the many wonders of the country which 
he dilates upon ; and it is urged from this that the 
art did not at that time exist amongst the Chinese. 
To this, however, is to be replied that this very 
silence upon so important a subject would have 
been unaccountable, — indeed, could hardly be sup- 
posed to have occurred, — supposing the art to 
have been practised in China, and unknown in 
V enice ; but that it may be at once naturally and 
satisfactorily accounted for on the supposition that 
wood-engraving was already well known, and com- 
monly practised, not only in China, but in Venice 
also. 
With regar'd to the early use of this art, or of 
the appliances which are involved in it, it may be 
observed, as is very well known, that the printed 
stuffs of the Chinese are of very remote antiquity, 
being apparently printed by means of stamps, or 
blocks of wood, iu the same manner as the cotton 
prints of Europe of a more recent date. Again, 
the Portuguese missionaries, on their first visit to 
Japan, in 1549, found the art of block-printing in 
use there 3 and Alvaro Sunedo, in his “Relatione 
della Cina,” states that “ the Chinese, according to 
their works, claim to have used the art during a 
period of sixteen centuries.” To conclude with this 
branch of the case the learned Baron Mearman, in 
a paper in the “ Origines Typographic,” quotes a 
variety of passages from a “ History of China” 
written by Abusaid, in Persian, a.d. 1317, from 
amongst which it may be sufficient for our purpose 
to cite the following :■ — “ All the books edited by 
the persons in question” (alluding to those Chinese 
savants whom he names), “are written in a beauti- 
ful hand, so that each page may be transposed in 
the same handsome characters to the blocks with 
which the men of learning are always at great 
pains to collate their manuscripts, attesting by a 
private mark on the back of each block their appro- 
bation of it. They next commit these blocks, or 
tables, to the best engravers, and finally complete 
the whole by numbering the pages.” The Persian 
author then goes on to describe the systematic 
manner in which these blocks were preserved in 
cases under seal 3 which would argue it to have 
been an old-established practice, and not one of 
recent adoption. 
But, indeed, the art of taking impressions in 
black or coloured inks from seals, or stamps, en- 
graved for the purpose, by way of authenticating 
deeds, and, amongst the Chinese, paper-money itself, 
is unquestionably of the very highest antiquity in 
the East, and was probably derived thence by the 
Romans, amongst whom we have abundant ex- 
amples of the like kind. I 11 later times we find 
Charlemagne and the Frankish monarchs pursuing 
the same practice, with seals or stanqis, which were 
probably first made of wood. It seems difficult to 
suppose that the obvious uses of such an appliance 
should have been through a long series of ages in 
great manner overlooked, and that it should all 
this while have been restricted to the sealing or 
stamping of documents. 
Having said thus much in support of the claims 
of the East to the first use of this art, the next 
question that arises is how it found its way from 
thence into Europe. The probability is, as has 
been already suggested, that it was imported 
through the then great emporium of Oriental 
commerce, Venice, whence it afterwards found its 
way into Central and Western Europe, through the 
Low Countries, and the ports of the Hanseatic 
League. 
We have already observed that in all probability 
the art was known and practised both by the 
Chinese and the Venetians in the time of Marco 
Polo, at the end of the thirteenth century 3 and 
what goes a great way to support this impression, 
so far at least as Venice is concerned, is a very 
curious decree of the Venetian government, which 
was published, printed from an engraved wooden 
