In not a few of the monasteries, even of those which had an old-time repute for literary activity, the literary efforts came and went in waves, and sometimes for long periods, extending over a generation or more, there was an actual decrease in the extent of the attention given to the production of manuscripts and to the securing of additions to the library. In other instances the development of the libraries went on but slowly. C. Schmidt refers to the record of the library of the Strasburg Cathedral, which in 1260 possessed a collection of fifty codices that had been for the most part presented by Bishop Wernher as far back as 1027. In the year 1372, the catalogue of the library shows that the number had increased to ninety-one, a gain of only forty-one manuscripts in a space of more than one century. The renewed interest that came to the scholars of Italy in the works of classic writers with the revival of classical studies induced by the Renaissance caused manuscripts of these works to be searched for, not only in Italy and in the countries of the East that could most easily be reached by Italy, but throughout the monasteries of Europe. In 1517, there is record of instruction being given by Pope Leo X. to a certain cleric named Heytmer to visit the libraries of the Palatinate and of the adjoining districts and to search for classical manuscripts for purchase for the Papal collection. Heytmer was enjoined to make special inquiry for the missing books of Livy. Another agent of Leo was fortunate enough to discover in the monastery of Corvey on the Weser the first five books of Tacitus. Being unable to induce the monastery to make sale of the manuscript, he succeeded in some way in appropriating it, and in getting it safely over the Alps. It was this manuscript that was used for the _editio princeps_ of Tacitus, printed in Rome in 1515. The Pope sent to the library of the Corvey monastery a copy of this printed edition of the Tacitus as a restitution for the appropriated manuscript. The manuscript itself, in 1522, was taken (one does not know how) from Rome to Florence, where it is to-day chained in the Laurentian Library. I understand that this Corvey text constituted the only copy of the first five books of Tacitus which had been found when this author was first put into print.