The name of a wood-engraver proper--_Formschneider_--first occurs in the town-books of Nuremberg, under the year 1449; and as for twenty years subsequently, it frequently occurs on the same page with that of a card-painter--_Kartenmaler_--there cannot be a doubt that there was a distinction between the professions, although, like the barbers and surgeons of former times, they both belonged to the same fellowship or company.
A few years subsequent to the _Formschneider_, the _Briefmaler_ occurs; but though his designation has the same literal meaning as that of the _Kartenmaler_, yet his business seems to have been more general, including both that of the card-painter and wood-engraver. About 1470 we find the _Briefmalers_ not only employed in executing figures, but also in engraving the text of block-books; and about the end of the fifteenth century the term seems to have been generally synonymous with that of _Formschneider_. Subsequently the latter term prevailed as the proper designation of a wood-engraver, while that of _Briefmaler_ was more especially applied, like that of the original _Kartenmaler_, to designate a person who coloured cards and other figures.[102]
Though we have positive evidence that, about the year 1470, the _Briefmaler_ was a wood-engraver as well as a colourer of cards; and though it be highly probable that the outlines of the figures on cards were then engraved on wood, and that, from this circumstance, the _Briefmaler_ became also a wood-engraver, yet we have no proof that the earliest wood-engravers in Europe were the card-makers. Von Murr indeed confidently affirms "that card-makers and card-painters were known in Germany eighty years before the invention of typography, and that the card-makers were at first properly wood-engravers, but that, after the art of wood-engraving was applied to the execution of sacred subjects, a distinction was made."[103] He who can thus persuade himself that the germ of wood-engraving in Europe is to be found in cards, will doubtless feel great pleasure in tracing its interesting development; the first term, cards engraved on wood, being assumed, we then have figures of saints with their names, or short explanations, engraved on wood; next block-books consisting of sacred subjects with copious explanatory text; and lastly typography and the press: "ce n'est que le premier pas qui coute."[104]