In 1614, a new office was created in addition to the number already charged with the supervision of the Press. The incumbent was called the Superintendent of the Press, and his special duty appears to have been the passing upon the printers’ “copy” before this was put into the hands of the typesetters. In 1653, a fresh attempt was made to strengthen the Guild of Printers, for the purpose as well of improving the quality of Venetian printing, as of checking the increasing importations of foreign books. The tax on imported books was raised to eight ducats ($18) per hundred pounds. In 1671, there were increasing complaints concerning the bad workmanship and inaccurate typography of Venetian editions, and also as to the non-delivery of the copyright copies for the libraries of S. Mark and of Padua. The failure to secure obedience to the various provisions of the press-law is not to be wondered at when we remember how complex these provisions were, and that there was practically no police machinery to utilise for their enforcement. At the close of the seventeenth century, the following processes had to be gone through with before a book could be published: _testamur_ from the Inquisitor; _testamur_ from the ducal secretary; certificate from the _Rifformatori_ of the University of Padua; _imprimatur_ from the Chiefs of the Ten; revision by the Superintendent of the Press; revision by the public proof-reader; collation of the original text with the text as printed by the secretary to the _Rifformatori_; certificate from the librarian of S. Mark that a copy had been deposited in the library; examination by experts appointed by the _Proveditori_ to establish the market price of the book. In connection with the majority of these operations a fee was required. The failure to secure any one of the several _testamurs_ or _imprimaturs_ delayed or indefinitely blocked the publication of the book. This stopping of the publication might be made necessary only after a considerable outlay had been incurred by the publisher in addition to the expenditure of labour and time on the part of the author. It is not to be wondered at that with such heavy burdens and annoying obstacles literary production should have lessened, and publishing enterprise and investment have been checked. It is only surprising that under such a complex machinery of supervision publishing should have continued possible at all. It is certain that the possibility of securing from the business remunerative returns had, by the close of the seventeenth century, very much diminished, and that there must have been a corresponding reduction in the earnings of literary labour. By the beginning of the seventeenth century, the centre of literary production and of publishing activity had been transferred from Italy to Germany, from Venice and Rome to Zurich, Frankfort, and Leipzig.