ere discovered.

We find on many cards some attempts at portraiture. Thus we have in Fig.
5 Clovis as the King of Clubs, but depicted in a costume of the time of
Henry IV. of France, the card itself being of that period. This, as well
as Fig. 4, is from a pack of fifty-two "Numeral" cards, printed from
wood-block and stencilled in colour.

[Illustration: FIG. 6.]

Returning to "Tarots," we have in Fig. 6 (Le Fou) one of the cards
designed by Mitelli about 1680, it is said to the order of a member of
the Bentivoglio family (parts of whose armorial bearings are to be found
on many of the cards), for the "Tarrocchini di Bologna," a special form
of the game of Tarot, a series of spirited designs of vigorous and
careful drawing, and the most artistically valuable of any of the Tarots
with which we are acquainted. In them not only the Tarot series but the
ordinary suits display a quaint conception and generally elegant design.

It is curious to note that in the eleven packs or parts of packs of
these Bolognese cards which we have met with in various parts of Europe
there is not any uniformity of manufacture, but while the designs are
the same and evidently produced from the same copper plates, the making
of them into cards for the purpose of play bears indication of what
might be termed a "domestic" manufacture. For some time the game was
interdicted in Bologna, and it is possible that this may have induced a
surreptitious production and illicit sale of the cards. Fortunately, the
interdict did not prevent the preservation to us of this interesting
series.

[Illustration: FIG. 7.]

At different periods between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, but
notably in the two earlier of them, card "suits" have been used other
than the familiar ones of Hearts, Spades, Clubs, and Diamonds, and much
ingenuity and imagination have been exercised upon them. Among the most
beautiful of such cards we take the set designed and engraved by Virgil
Solis, the celebrated Nuremberg artist and engraver, in which the suit
signs are Lions, Peacocks, Monkeys, and Parroquets. In Fig. 7 we have
the Ace of Peacocks. The aces are lettered with the distinctive
suit-titles of the German cards, viz., "Grun," "Eicheln," "Schellen,"
and "Herzen." The pack consists of fifty-two, divided into four suits of
thirteen cards each; the date of these cards is between 1535 and 1560,
and they are an important and valuable item in the artistic history of
play