Print collector's quarterly (4.1914)

Church of the Imprunetta, wherein is an image of the
Virgin, painted, so the legend goes, by St. Luke himself.
In the foreground at the left is a building beneath which
a table with viands invites the opening of many purses.
At the extreme right two mountebanks are performing
their tricks, one with a magic box, the other with a
trained serpent. A great tree frames the entire right of
the picture; the central portion is given over to booths
and tents; and everywhere clusters of the populace, men
and women on horseback, gorgeous carriages, farmers’
wagons, cattle, donkeys, dogs and bircls. Trades are
plied, romantic episodes portrayed, games played, fires
built; nor is even the grim note of suffering lacking in
that poor rogue who hangs from a scaffolcl, with a great
stone tied to his tortured feet. Towards the back-
ground Stands the church itself, flanked at the left by a
large building and at the right by a row of trees with
dense foliage. A background of hills and cloud-filled
sky — the heavy clouds of a brilliant day — complete a
design of such rieh and variecl composition that to des-
cribe fully were almost to usurp the functions of the
cinematograph.
In studying this astounding plate I devised a scheine
which turned out to be as satisfactory as it was amus-
ing. I took a mat with an opening one-sixteenth the size
of the etching, and beginning at the upper right hand
corner I slowly moved this mat downward. After reach-
ing the bottom of the plate, the experiment was re-
peated, with the mat moved an inch towards the left.
Then again and again, until hundreds of small pictures
had been revealed. With the obvious exception of the
space given over to the sky and to parts of the edifices,
each section of this great plate thus became a charming

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