At Rome, Eucharius Silber and his successor Marcellus were the chief printers from 1500 to 1516. A little later the Bladi took their place, and under the auspices of the Council of the Propaganda of the Faith a press was set up for printing in Syriac, Armenian, and other Oriental languages. The output also of the presses in other Italian cities was still considerable. Nevertheless, from the same causes which produced her political decay Italy rapidly ceased to be the head-quarters of European printing, yielding this honour to France about the end of the first quarter of the century, and by some thirty or forty years later becoming quite uninfluential. To the German printing trade, also, the sixteenth century brought a notable decline of reputation. In its first two decades Johann Schoeffer (son of Peter) produced some fine books at Mainz; at Strassburg Gruninger poured forth illustrated books, and Johann Knoblouch and Matthias Schurer were both prolific. The importance of Cologne diminished, though the sons of Heinrich Quentell had a good business. Augsburg, on the other hand, came to the front, the elder and younger Schoensperger, Johann and Silvanus Otmar, Erhard Oglin, Johann Miller, and the firm of Sigismund Grim and Marcus Wirsung all doing important work. At Nuremberg the chief printing houses were those of Hieronymus Holzel, Johann Weissenburger, and Friedrich Peypus. Leipzig and Hagenau both greatly increased their output, and with the advent of Luther, Wittenberg soon became an important publishing centre. Luther's activity alone would have sufficed to make the fortunes of any publisher had it not been for the fact that as each pamphlet from his pen was produced at Wittenberg by Hans Lufft, or some other authorized printer, it was promptly pirated in other cities, often with the retention of the original imprint. Many of these Luther tracts had ornamental borders, and, as will be narrated in another chapter, the German book-illustrations of this period were often very finely designed, but the paper used, even in important books, was poor compared to that found in German incunabula, and the presswork too often careless. These defects are found intensified in almost all the German books published after this date, and German printing soon lost all its technical excellence, though the output of its presses continued to be large, and the great annual fair at Frankfort during the course of the sixteenth century became the most important event in the book-trade of Northern Europe.