From this time forward, under the able supervision of the Bishop of Aleria, Sweynheym and Pannartz continued to print with the greatest industry, but they did not meet with the support which they merited. In 1472 they had become so badly off that a letter was written to Pope Sixtus IV. pointing out their distress, and asking for assistance. This letter, printed on one sheet, is usually found in the fifth volume of Nicholas de Lyra’s _Commentary on the Bible_, printed in 1472. Its great bibliographical interest lies in the fact that the printers gave a list of what they had printed and the number of copies they issued. In the list twenty-eight works are mentioned, and the number of volumes amounted altogether to 11,475. They usually issued 275 copies of each work which they printed. This list also clearly shows the extraordinary influence of the new learning so actively promoted by Cosmo de Medici and encouraged by his grandson Lorenzo. The majority of the books in this list are classics, either in their original Latin or in Latin translations from the Greek; and that the printers were anxious to benefit scholars, is shown by the assertion of the Bishop of Aleria in the prefatory letter to the _Ciceronis Epistolæ ad Atticum_ of 1470, where it is said that they had produced their editions of Cicero at the lowest possible price, “ad pauperum commoditatem.” To judge from the results, the appeal to the Pope was of little effect, for in 1473 Conrad Sweynheym gave up the business of printing, and confined his attention to engraving on metal; while Pannartz continued to print by himself up till the end of 1476, issuing in those three years about twelve books. The last book on which Pannartz was engaged was a new edition of the _Letters of St. Jerome_, but he only finished one volume. Three years later, George Laver, who seems to have acquired the type, issued the second volume. It is therefore quite probable, as is generally asserted, that Pannartz died in 1476 or early in 1477. Sweynheym, ever since he had given up printing, had been engaged in engraving a series of maps to illustrate Ptolemy’s _Geography_; but, after working three years upon them, died before they were finished. The edition of Ptolemy was finally issued in 1478 by Arnold Buckinck, a German, who in his preface said that he was anxious ‘that the emendations of Calderinus--who also died before the book was printed--and the results of Sweynheym’s most ingenious mechanical contrivances might not be lost to the learned world.’