The censors who examined Cynthio’s volume, ordered the author to expunge the obnoxious passages. In the meantime, however, the monks took the matter into their own hands (although they claimed to act with the authority of the Council) and carried off from the printer’s shop all the copies on hand. Cynthio petitioned the Council for their restoration, and the printer put in a claim on his part that the volumes should be replaced in his hands until his printing account had been paid. An order to such effect was given, but apparently only a small portion of the volumes were received, the others having disappeared while in the custody of the monks. Copies of the work have since been extremely rare. The author is reported to have died a violent death.[150] Up to this time there had been no attempt to formulate a code of laws for the regulation of the Press; such action as had been taken by the Government, had been in the shape of isolated decrees, or special acts prepared to meet specific cases. There was no such thing as preventive legislation; it was always planned either to present a remedy for some immediate difficulty or to repress some specific wrong-doing. The lines upon which the press-code of Venice was finally promulgated had, however, been gradually indicated by the customs and precedents established for particular cases. Before the period of general legislation, the practice had, as we have seen, been arrived at by securing, first from the College, and later from the Senate, privileges, taking the shape either of monopolies or of copyrights; while for the _imprimatur_ or authority to print, application was made to the Council of Ten. The first law of censorship made such _imprimatur_ obligatory. The censorship of the character of the books thus fell upon the Ten, which retained in its own hands the direct control of the political censorship and delegated to ecclesiastical examiners the task of theological censorship, accepting, as a rule, the report of such examiners as final. When, later, it was found necessary to give consideration not only to the political and theological influence of books, but to their literary quality and their moral character, these divisions of the censorship were also assumed by the Council of Ten. In 1487, was issued the first Papal Bull having to do with the productions of the printing-press. It was addressed by Pope Innocent VIII. to seven governments as follows: Romana, Curia, Italia, Germania, Francia, Hispania, Anglia, and Scotia. It is entitled: _Bulla S. D. N. Innocentii contra Impressores Librorum Rebrobatorum_, and was printed in Rome in 1487. The opening paragraph reads: _Et ea propter nos qui illius locum tenemus in terris qui ad illuminandum hominum mentes et errorum tenebros exterminandum descendit e coelis_ (and, therefore, we who hold on earth the place of Him who came down from heaven to enlighten the minds of men and to disperse the darkness of error).