DOI issue:
Vol. 6, No. 1 (February, 1916)
DOI article:Richter, Emil H.: The tarocchi prints
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49980#0112
Being familiar now with the views of the Bartsch
partisan, let us hear the exponent of the other side,
Mr. Hind, in his scholarly essay on the Tarocchi, which
he styles “A Series of Fifty Instructive Prints” (“Cat-
alogue of Early Italian Engravings ... in the British
Museum,” by Arthur Mayger Hind, B.A. Edited by
(Sir) Sidney Colvin, M.A., D.Litt., London, 1910).
Again I shall have to convey the author’s reasoning
in abridged form. The designs, we are told, are possi-
bly by more than one hand, but all bearing the charac-
ter peculiar to the school of Ferrara, formed by influ-
ences from Padua and Verona and partly from the
Umbro-Florentine Piero della Francesca. The peculiar
Ferrarese break and complication of drapery, the par-
tiality for large heads and bulging foreheads 1 and for
facial expressions of harsh intensity'—these, with many
characteristic features both of landscape and of cos-
tume, declare the school at once. The particular
painter of whom the series most often reminds us is
Francesco Cossa, in whose style the influence of Piero
della Francesca has gone far to temper the asperities
and exaggerations characteristic of the other contemp-
orary chief of the school, Cosimo Tura.
The original or E series, continues the author, basing
his remarks on “internal evidence (and none other
exists) ... is engraved with remarkable technical pre-
cision and neatness in fine rectangular cross-hatchings
1 It is interesting to note Gruyer’s remarks in this connection
(Revue des Deux Mondes, August, 1883, “ Le Palais de Schifanoia”).
It seems that the fashion of those days demanded that foreheads be
uncovered as much as possible. The hair was forcibly drawn back,
sometimes one did not hesitate to shave off part of it. Traces of this
habit are found in the conscientious portrait of Battista Sforza, prin-
cess of Federigo, Duke of Urbino, by Piero della Francesca, in the
Uffizi in Florence.
72
partisan, let us hear the exponent of the other side,
Mr. Hind, in his scholarly essay on the Tarocchi, which
he styles “A Series of Fifty Instructive Prints” (“Cat-
alogue of Early Italian Engravings ... in the British
Museum,” by Arthur Mayger Hind, B.A. Edited by
(Sir) Sidney Colvin, M.A., D.Litt., London, 1910).
Again I shall have to convey the author’s reasoning
in abridged form. The designs, we are told, are possi-
bly by more than one hand, but all bearing the charac-
ter peculiar to the school of Ferrara, formed by influ-
ences from Padua and Verona and partly from the
Umbro-Florentine Piero della Francesca. The peculiar
Ferrarese break and complication of drapery, the par-
tiality for large heads and bulging foreheads 1 and for
facial expressions of harsh intensity'—these, with many
characteristic features both of landscape and of cos-
tume, declare the school at once. The particular
painter of whom the series most often reminds us is
Francesco Cossa, in whose style the influence of Piero
della Francesca has gone far to temper the asperities
and exaggerations characteristic of the other contemp-
orary chief of the school, Cosimo Tura.
The original or E series, continues the author, basing
his remarks on “internal evidence (and none other
exists) ... is engraved with remarkable technical pre-
cision and neatness in fine rectangular cross-hatchings
1 It is interesting to note Gruyer’s remarks in this connection
(Revue des Deux Mondes, August, 1883, “ Le Palais de Schifanoia”).
It seems that the fashion of those days demanded that foreheads be
uncovered as much as possible. The hair was forcibly drawn back,
sometimes one did not hesitate to shave off part of it. Traces of this
habit are found in the conscientious portrait of Battista Sforza, prin-
cess of Federigo, Duke of Urbino, by Piero della Francesca, in the
Uffizi in Florence.
72