A different set of facts are evident in the inks of mediaeval times which are found to greatly vary according to their ages and locality. But few black inks of the ninth and tenth centuries remain to us. In the MSS. of those centuries a red ink was the prevailing one even to the extent of entire volumes being written with it. In Italy and many other portions of Southern Europe specimens now extant, when compared with those belonging to Germany and other more northern countries, are seen to be blacker and this is also true when those of France and England are compared, the blacker inks belonging to France. With the gradual disappearance of the so-called "Dark Ages," the ink found on Spanish written MSS. of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, are notedly of intense blackness while those of some of the other countries appear of a rather faded gray color, and in the sixteenth century, this gray color effect prevailed all over the Christian world. To revert again to the ink phenomena of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries which are of Italian origin. In no section of that country or of Europe during those centuries do ink creations possess, in so marked a degree, the variety of color qualities that are seen on those of the city of Florence. Indeed it may be truly said that during those periods more ink written MSS. were produced in that place than all the rest of Europe. These productions of MSS. were not confined to simple ink writings. The heads of religious orders and rulers of the country liked to have artists near them to illuminate their missals and sacred books, besides the decorating of walls in their churches and palaces. Through this art of illuminating and the painting of miniatures in MSS. books, "oil" painting took root and the day for mere symbols and hieroglyphics was over. In that city of scholars and wealth it was a fashion and later the custom to acquire Greek, Latin and Oriental MSS. and copy them for circulation and sale. The prices offered were sufficient to stimulate the search and zeal for them. We learn that in the year 1400 "on the square of the Duoma a spacciatore was established whose business was to sell manuscripts often full of mistakes and blunders." Nicholas V, before he became Pope, was nicknamed "Tommaso the Copyist." He is said to have presented to the Vatican library as a gift five thousand volumes of his own creation.