Siennese impressions are anything but common, and as the early typography of this town still awaits a historian, a short account of a few works from its chief press will not be out of place. The most important is no doubt the Datus, printed by Simeon Nardi in 1503. The title consists of two lines in small Gothic characters, _Augustini dati senensis opera_, and underneath come three sonnets by admirers of Datus (for the name is spelt indifferently, Datus or Dathus), in each of which he is compared to Cicero. ‘Read through,’ says Angelus Fundius, ‘this venerable volume of the facund Dathus, but take care I advise you to glance first at the title page.’ ‘Nam si forte vagus legeres, mihi crede putares non esse hoc Dathi sed Ciceronis opus.’ The others are equally complimentary. The volume is a folio collection of speeches and essays on all kinds of subjects, and consists of fourteen preliminary, followed by two hundred and ninety numbered leaves, or twice as many pages. There are sixty lines to the page of small, clear Roman type, pleasantly relieved by curious little capitals. The colophon gives ‘Impressum Senis ex Architypo per Symeonem Nicolai Nardi, Anno salutis MDIII Sexto Kal Novembris,’ and on the verso is Nardi’s mark representing a child holding a banneret astride a wolf, which is suckling another child beneath. The whole is surrounded by a highly ornamented border. The most interesting feature, however, of the book is its series of large initials, which, taking into consideration the two different states of the Q, are fourteen in number.[29] The most characteristic, and perhaps the most effective, are those on a black ground, but the others are equally free and vigorous in treatment. One of them, the R, has the same subject (Romulus and Remus with the wolf) as the printer’s mark, a subject which is used in other volumes as a pictorial title-page. The reason of this is explained in the motto at the bottom of the mark in another book, ‘ROMAE QUE ORIGO SENAE INSIGNIA.’ [29] In some of the proofs the Q is a white letter, the original block being cut away. Unfortunately, as is so often the case, the impressions are not all equally good, but it is easy to see that where anything is wanting, it is the fault of the printing and not of the artist. The letters of this series were much used in subsequent publications, but with the exception of an ornamental M of the same style which comes from a book of poetry published by Simon Rubeo in 1513, and an I in a tract by Marcellus Beringhuccius not of the same merit, we have not seen any Sienna letters that are not in the Dathus. It is to be remarked that the volumes which have an ornamental title-page have no printer’s mark, and _vice versa_, the first not occurring in publications before 1539.