Illustrated books were published at Lyon somewhat earlier than at Paris, and in point of numbers, if the comparison be confined to secular books with sets of cuts especially appropriated to them, the provincial city probably equalled, if it did not surpass, the metropolis. But if it must be reckoned to the credit of Lyon that it had no Antoine Verard, reckless in his use of unsuitable stock cuts, it must be noted, on the other hand, that strikingly good illustrations are rare and bad ones numerous. Inasmuch as Lyon, before it welcomed the art of printing, had established some reputation for the manufacture of playing-cards, the number of rude and badly cut illustrations is indeed surprisingly large. The first Lyonnese printer to use pictorial woodcuts in a dated book was Martin Huss, who issued a _Miroir de la Redemption_, 27 August, 1478, with the aid of blocks previously used (1476) by Bernard Richel at Basel; cuts of surgical instruments appeared in the following March, 1478-9, in the _Chirurgia_ of Guido de Cauliaco printed for Barth. Buyer by Nicolaus Philippi and Marcus Reinhart, and the same printers' undated _Legende doree_ with very rude pictures is probably contemporaneous with this. The earliest woodcut of any artistic interest and of Lyonnese origin is a picture, occupying a folio-page, of the Blessed Virgin, with the Holy Child in her arms, standing in front of a curtain. This is found in the _Histoire du Chevalier Oben qui vouloist acuplir le voiage de S. Patrix_, printed by Leroy about 1480, of which the only known copy is at the British Museum. After 1480 all the firms we have named continued to issue illustrated books of varying merit. On 30 September, 1483, Leroy completed a _Livre des Eneydes_ with cuts which are often grotesque, though sometimes neat and sometimes giving evidence of a vigour of design too great for the wood-cutter's skill. In 1485 he found a Lyonnese cutter able to copy for him the Paris cuts of Jean Bonhomme's edition of the _Destruction de Troye la Grant_ quite competently, though in a much heavier style. In May, 1486, he printed a _Livre des Sainctz Anges_ with a figure of Christ in a mandorla (perhaps suggested by the engraving of the same subject in Bettini's _Monte Santo di Dio_), and this, despite a certain clumsiness in the face, is quite good. In the same year, in an edition of _Fierabras_, Leroy went back to cuts of incredible rudeness, while about 1490 in _Les Mysteres de la Saincte Messe_, we find him employing for a cut of the Annunciation a skilled craftsman, signing himself I. D. (Jean Dalles?), whose work, though lacking in charm, is neatness itself. Some shaded cuts in his romance of Bertrand Du Guesclin (undated, but _c._ 1487) are among the best work in any book by Leroy. Among his other undated illustrated books are editions of _Pierre de Provence_, _Melusine_, and the _Roman de la Rose_.