We come now to a book bearing an earlier date than any of those already mentioned, but not entitled to its full pride of place because it is doubtful to what extent the engravings connected with it can be reckoned an integral part of it. This is the French version of Boccaccio's _De casibus illustrium virorum_ ("Des cas des nobles hommes"), printed at Bruges by Colard Mansion and dated 1476. As originally printed there was no space left for any pictorial embellishments; but in at least two copies the first leaf of the prologue has been reprinted so as to leave room for a picture; in another copy, which in 1878 belonged to Lord Lothian, spaces are left also at the beginning of each of the nine books into which the work is divided, except the first and sixth, and all the spaces have been filled with copper engravings coloured by hand; in yet another copy there is a space left also at the beginning of Book VI. According to the monograph on the subject by David Laing (privately printed in 1878), the subjects of the engravings are:-- (1) Prologue, the Author presenting his work to his patron, Mainardo Cavalcanti. (2) Book I. Adam and Eve standing before the Author as he writes. (3) Book II. King Saul on horseback, and lying dead. (4) Book III. Fortune and Poverty. (5) Book IV. Marcus Manlius thrown into the Tiber. (6) Book V. The Death of Regulus. (7) Book VI. Not known. (8) Book VII. A combat of six men. (9) Book VIII. The humiliation of the Emperor Valerian by King Sapor of Persia. (10) Book IX. Brunhilde, Queen of the Franks, torn asunder by four horses. From the reproductions which Laing gives in his monograph it is evident that the engraver set himself to imitate the style of the contemporary illuminated manuscripts of the Bruges school, and that he used his graver rather to get the designs on to the paper than with any real feeling for the characteristic charm of his own art. My own inclination is to believe that we must look on these plates as a venture of Colard Mansion's rather in his old capacity as an illuminator, anxious to decorate a few special copies, than as a printer intent on embellishing a whole edition. The engravings may have been made at any time between 1476 and 1483, when they were clearly used as models by Jean Du Pre for his Paris edition, the wood-blocks for which, as we have seen, were subsequently sold or lent to Pynson. The variations in the number of spaces in different copies may quite as well be due to a mixing of quires as to successive enlargements of the plan, and the fact that more copies of the engravings have survived apart from than with the book draws attention once more to the difficulty found in printing these incised plates to accompany letterpress printed from type standing in relief.