The S series is cut with less precision, and in rich early impressions presents a somewhat blurred effect, without clarity of line, comparable with the Florentine Fine-Manner engravings. Moreover the engraver of the S series shows a certain lack of skill in the control of his graver, ^letting his lines of shading slip from time to time over
the contour-line of his figures. On the other hand he is a freer and better informed draughtsman.
Contrasted with the tense formal and somewhat cramped character of the E series is the greater freedom of drawing and the more natural representation of the S series; and opposed to the impressive dignity of the E series is the weaker but more graceful manner of the S series. In one instance {King, 8) the S engraver substitutes a classical for a medieval design. The size of the figures in proportion to the space to be filled, and of the heads in proportion to the figures, is for the most part less in the S series. The drawing of the faces in the S series shows less character, especially in the weaker mouths, than in the E series. Forced and awkward actions in the E series are often more naturally rendered in the S series. In the Artisan (3) the relative position of master and
apprentice is more natural in S than E; in the Emperor (9) the position of the crossed legs in E is strained and cramped (hardly possible if the engraver had known the S series), in S it is more easy and natural; again in Music (26) an awkward position of the legs in E is represented more naturally in S; in Astrologia (29) the S version has a more natural adjustment of the cloak, and gives the numbering (which occurs in E erroneously as 39) correctly. In Urania (12), E series, the bridge of the compasses is bent the wrong way; in S it is rightly figured; in Thalia (16) the E engraver places the bow and instrument (a sort of rebec, with two strings)[l] in the correct hands, and the S engraver for once is false to nature in reversing the action, though he represents the holding of the bow more naturally. In the Knight (6) the reversal of the design in S gives the hold of sword and dagger more correctly.
In Erato (14) the left hand which is over-bulging in its contour in E, is more gracefully drawn in S.
Several of the above differences seem to me to point to the probability of the S series being the later. I would give three further instances which are stronger evidence of the priority of the E series. In the first place the approximate date seems fixed by costume: the straight hair of the servant in Nos. 2,5 and 6, corresponds closely with the hair of the page at the foot of the steps furthest right in Mantegna's picture of Lodovico Gonzaga and his family in the Camera degli Sposi, Mantua (1469-72). In the S series the servant's hair is curled like that of the serving-men in Botticelli's Wedding Feast of Nostagio degli Onesti of 1483 (Van Marle xii, fig. 265). In the second place the omission of the signs of the Evangelists in No. 50 (Prima Causa) in the E series would be improbable if the E engraver had been the copyist. In the third place a fall of drapery in No. 46 (Jupiter) seems to imply the priority of E : in E Jupiter holds up his cloak with his left hand: in S Jupiter's left hand is detached, but the drapery at the same place is higher than it would naturally fall without support over the knee.
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