No sooner was the success of this venture assured than an unknown printer of Lyons took advantage of the opportunity to issue a wretched reprint, alike in every detail except the quality of the workmanship. Aldus' painstaking textual corrections were slavishly copied: even his title-page was stolen, and the whole immoral production foisted on the public as a genuine example from Venice, and at a little more than half the cost. Horace and Juvenal, Martial and Ovid, shared the same fate as fast as they issued from the legitimate press; the Lyonnese printer was as persevering as he had proved himself unscrupulous, and kept good time with the movements of Aldus. But the fame of the latter was proof against servile imitations, his types alone being so extravagantly praised by his admirers that there were some who seriously contended that their beauty was owing to the silver of which they were made. There is, indeed, no mistaking them, and the collector has only to place an original side by side with one of the reprints from Lyons, to fix the superiority distinctly and irrevocably in his mind. Aldus during his life printed altogether 126 editions known to bibliographers, 78 of which are in quarto or folio, and many in two or more volumes. Some of these consist of choice copies printed on white linen paper, notably the _Opera_ of Ovid and Plutarch, and many more passed through several editions during his lifetime and after his death, which, to the great loss of the world of letters, took place on the 6th February, 1515, when he was 65 years of age. The distinguishing mark of the Aldine press is the well-known dolphin and anchor which first makes its appearance on the edition of the _Terze Rime_ of Dante of 1502, and with few exceptions on all the books afterwards issued from the press. The story is that Aldus was engaged in printing Columna's _Hypnerotomachia Poliphili_, which appeared in 1499 (a good copy sold in February last for L80), and which contained numerous illustrations, most probably by Andrea Mantegna. One of these represents a dolphin twining about an anchor, a mark so pleasing to Aldus that he subsequently adopted it, using it over his office door as well as on the title-pages of all his books. [Illustration: _The first Aldine Anchor, 1502-1515._] [Illustration: _Mark of A. Torresano, and that of his Sons._] At the death of Aldus Manutius his son Paolo, or Paulus, being only three years of age, went to reside with his maternal uncle Andrea Torresano, himself a famous printer of Asola, who subsequently, with his sons, carried on the Aldine press at Venice for the benefit of the parties interested. From that date until 1524 most, if not all, of the books printed at the press bear the imprint: "In aedibus Aldi et Andreae Asulani soceri," and though, as usual, bearing the anchor, a fresh block had been cut which slightly alters its appearance.