Among the greatest rarities of early engraving in north Italy is the well-known series traditionally called the “Tarocchi Cards of Mantegna”—somewhat erroneously, for they are neither by Mantegna, nor Tarocchi, nor playing-cards at all. As in the case of the “Prophets and Sibyls,” there are two complete series of the same subjects by two different engravers. Each series consists of fifty subjects divided into five sections and illustrating: (1) the Sorts and Conditions of Men; (2) Apollo and the Muses; (3) the Arts and Sciences; (4) the Genii and Virtues; (5) the Planets and Spheres. A considerable number of the earliest impressions known are still in contemporary fifteenth-century binding, and it seems as if the series was intended merely as an instructive or entertaining picture-book for the young. There is the most absolute divergence of opinion as to which is the original series, and the student is encouraged to whet his critical acumen on the problem by the excellent set of reproductions which has recently been issued by the Graphische Gesellschaft and edited by Dr. Kristeller. Unfortunately Dr. Kristeller takes what seems to me an entirely wrong view of the matter. I cannot but feel that the more finely engraved series is at the same time the more ancient, and almost certainly Ferrarese in origin, so characteristic of Cossa is the type of these figures with large heads, rounded forms, and bulging drapery. The second series shows a more graceful sense of composition and spacing (the heads and figures being in better relation to the size of the print), but its very naturalism is to me an indication of its somewhat later origin. The less precise technical quality of this second series is closely related to the Florentine engravings in the Fine Manner, and I am inclined to regard it as the work of a Florentine engraver of about 1475 to 1480, i.e. about a decade later than the original set.
Antonio Pollaiuolo. Battle of Naked Men
“The only known engraving by the goldsmith and painter Antonio Pollaiuolo, the large Battle of Naked Men, shows a far greater artist than his slightly elder contemporary, Finiguerra. Pollaiuolo’s draughtsmanship evinces a grip and intensity that Finiguerra entirely lacks in his somewhat torpid academic drawings, and it is seen at its best in this magnificently vigorous plate.” Arthur M. Hind.
Reproduced from the impression in the Print Department, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Size of the original engraving, 15¹¹⁄₁₆ × 23⁷⁄₁₆ inches
Cristofano Robetta. The Adoration of the Magi
“Cristofano Robetta’s art has lost the finest flavor of the primitive Florentine without having succeeded to the sound technical system of the contemporaries of Dürer, but it has a thoroughly individual though delicate vein of fancy. The Adoration of the Magi, one of his finest plates, is a free translation of a picture by Filippino Lippi in the Uffizi, but the group of singing angels is an addition of his own, and done with a true sense for graceful composition.” Arthur M. Hind.
Size of the original engraving, 11⅝ × 11 inches