In the later years of his stay at Venice, Ratdolt seems to have lost interest in book-decoration, but the popularity of woodcuts steadily increased throughout the 'eighties, and by the end of the decade was in full tide. In 1484 Bernardinus Benalius gave some rough illustrations to the _Fioretti_ of Saint Francis; in 1486 Pietro Cremonese bestowed a formal but quite interesting decorated titlepage on the _Doctrinale_ of Alexander Gallus, with the title inscribed in a cartouche, above which rise an urn and lamps. In the same year we have in the _Supplementum Chronicarum_ printed by Bernardinus Benalius a few cuts of some size "translated" into an Italian style from those on the same subject in Quentell's Cologne Bible (c. 1480), also a little view of Venice copied in reverse from the _Fasciculus Temporum_. The _Supplementum Chronicarum_ was re-issued several times (the author, Jacobus Philippus Bergomensis, bringing the statement of his age up to date in each edition which he revised), and changes were constantly made in the cuts. In 1486 also came an edition of the _Libro de la divina lege_ of Marco del Monte S. Maria, with cuts of Mount Sinai and its desert, notable as having been copied by a much more skilful wood-cutter at Florence eight years later; 1487 produced the first of the Venetian illustrated _Aesops_, the cuts having borders of white scroll-work on a black ground and being influenced by the Naples edition of 1485. With this must be mentioned a _Fior di virtu_, with a title cut of a Friar plucking blossoms from a tree, which was thought good enough to be copied at Milan, but was replaced at Venice three years later by a delightful picture of a walled garden. It was in 1487 also that there appeared the edition of the _Devote Meditatione sopra la Passione_, with cuts taken from the old block-book (see p. 123). In subsequent editions (of 1489, etc.) these were replaced by new woodcuts of varying merit. A later edition still (1500) has a fine picture of the Entry into Jerusalem which Prince d'Essling connects with the _Hypnerotomachia_ of 1499. In 1488 we come to the first illustrated edition of the _Trionfi_ of Petrarch, printed by Bernardino de Novara. This has six large cuts, showing respectively the triumphs of Love, of Chastity, Death, Fame, Time, and the Divinity. All are well designed, but spoilt by weak cutting. In the same year appeared two other illustrated books, a _Sphaera Mundi_, with a few cuts not in themselves of great importance, and the _De Essent et Essenta_ of S. Thomas Aquinas, with a striking little picture of a child lighting a fire by means of a burning-glass. By studying these books in conjunction Prince d'Essling has shown that they were designed by one of their printers, Johann Santritter, and executed by the other, Hieronymus de Sanctis, and that to the latter may thus be attributed the illustrations (one at least of them of unusual beauty) in an _Officium Beatae Virginis_ which issued from his press 26