In no other country did the first thirty years of the sixteenth century produce so much interesting work as in Germany. Interesting, moreover, as this German work is in itself, it is made yet more so by the fact that a sufficient proportion of it is signed to enable connoisseurs to pursue their pleasant task of distributing the unsigned cuts among the available artists. Less intrinsically good, and with very few facilities for playing this fascinating game, the book-illustrations of other countries have been comparatively little studied. In Italy the new century brought some evil days to the book trade. Printing itself ceased for a time at Brescia; at Florence publishers for many years relied chiefly on their old stock of cuts; at Milan, at Ferrara and Pavia a little new work was done. At Venice the thin delicate outline cuts of the last decade of the fifteenth century ceased to be produced any longer, though the old blocks sometimes reappear. More often the old designs were either simply copied or imitated in the more heavily shaded style which was now coming into vogue. The interest of some of this shaded work is increased by the occasional appearance on it of a signature. Thus in the _Missale Romanum_ of 30 July, 1506, published by Stagninus, some of the cuts in this shaded style bear the same signature, "ia," as appears on the outline work in the Ovid of 1497. Work done by "ia" is also sometimes found copied by another cutter calling himself VGO, whose name is also found on some copies of French Horae cuts in a Venice Horae of 1513. [Illustration: XXV. VENICE. GREG. DE GREGORIIS, 1518 MISSALE ROMANUM (246^b). THE ASCENSION]