Calcio at Santa Croce, 1688

Florence prints the memoir of its own football, 175 years before the FA wrote a law.

Work: book engraving
Maker: Unknown engraver
Date: 1688
Ground: Piazza Santa Croce, Florence
Era: The Victorian game · 1870–1900
Source: Memorie del calcio fiorentino, Florence, 1688 · via Wikimedia Commons

Calcio gave Italy the word before England gave it the laws.

Format

The full-resolution scan, colour-managed to the source — yours to print, study, and explore.

Size

$29.00

The story

A plate from a book, Memorie del calcio fiorentino, edited by Pietro di Lorenzo Bini and published in Florence in 1688. It shows a game of calcio in the Piazza Santa Croce, the square where the sport is thought to have started. Calcio was played in teams and in livery, which is why it is also called calcio in livrea, and a version of its rules had been written down by Giovanni de’ Bardi in the late sixteenth century. The Italian word for association football is still calcio, after this game. Florence was printing memoirs of its football 175 years before the Football Association adopted its first laws in 1863.

See it on your wall

The piece, in the room it was made for

Calcio at Santa Croce, 1688, printed large and framed — in the den, the club bar, the supporters’ bar. Every edition ships ready to become the piece the room is built around.

Calcio at Santa Croce, 1688 framed on the wall

About this reproduction

A reproduction of book engraving — Unknown engraver, 1688 — from the copy held by Memorie del calcio fiorentino, Florence, 1688 · via Wikimedia Commons. The source. The work was published before 1931 and is public-domain verified.
Printed faithful to that source scan — restore honestly, disclose always. We do not re-colour it, complete it, or interpret it; the piece you receive is the image as it survives, halftone grain honored as history, not damage.
Printed to order on museum-grade cotton-rag stock with pigment inks — the pairing is rated 100+ years.
Colour-managed to the source; the tone of the paper and the ink is the period’s, not ours.
Ships in 5–10 business days, rolled in a heavy-wall tube (framed editions ship flat-packed).
If it arrives less than perfect, we reprint or refund — your choice.

Why our pieces cost more than a poster: a poster is a mass run on wood-pulp stock, colour-corrected to whatever flattered the press that day. This is one sheet, pulled for you, at a size where the maker’s hand is visible — the linework, the halftone grain, the lettering — on materials made to outlast their owner.

From the same hand