=The Printers’ Guild and Press Legislation.=--The Venetian Guild of Printers and Booksellers, while nominally given a very general control over the printing and publishing operations in the Republic, was never in a position to exercise so direct an effective influence over this business as had been secured by the similar English Guild chartered in 1556, under the name of “Stationers’ Hall.” It would appear that the printing and publishing trade had never given the same hearty support to their organisation as had been given to the early printers of London. It is certain that the Guild was not well governed by its own officers, as from year to year we find in the records long declarations of abuses which had arisen. Even the yearly election of officers fell into neglect, and it sometimes happened that the same officials remained in office, without the formality of re-election, for six or seven years running. It was only a very strong and thoroughly supported trade body that could have secured for itself the right to take an active part in coöperation with, or in antagonism to, the representatives of the Church on the one hand or of the State on the other, in framing the long series of regulations concerning copyright, literary property, press supervision, and typographical standards. The Guild of Venice did not have the continued sturdiness and self-assertion requisite for maintaining such influence. Its principal attention was given to shaping new taxes and new hindrances upon the importation of books from abroad, and to attempts, often fruitless, to prevent the migration from Venice of the more enterprising members of its own body. A very much larger influence was exercised upon the Press legislation of its time by the associated printers and publishers of Frankfort and Leipzig, and by the well organised Printer-publishers of Paris. The interference of the Church in the German publishing centres was never very serious; while in Paris the supervision of the ecclesiastics was, from the outset, overshadowed by the controlling influence (often fussy and bothersome) of the Parliament of Paris. In spite of feeble and ineffective management, however, the Guild of Venice accumulated property; and in 1638, it was rich enough to plan for the purchase of a Guild Hall, which was finally opened in 1642. The hall formed part of the cloisters attached to the Monastery of S. John and S. Paul, and was leased in perpetuity.