But no spot was more famed for the production of books than Mount Athos--the lofty promontory which stretches from the Macedonian coast far into the Ægean Sea. The heights and the sides of this mountain were almost covered with religious houses, rendered by art and nature, and by the universal opinion of the sanctity of the monks of the “holy mountain,” so secure that neither the meditations nor employments of the recluses were disturbed by the approach of violence. The chief occupation of the inmates of these establishments is affirmed to have been the transcription of books, of which each monastery boasted a large collection. Many extant manuscripts prove that the copying of books was practised extensively during the middle ages in the monasteries of the Morea, in those of the islands of Eubœa and of Crete. This latter island seems indeed to have been a place of refuge for men of learning during the latter periods of the eastern empire, who found in its monasteries, both shelter, and the means of subsistence. Fifty religious establishments in Calabria, and the kingdom of Naples, are mentioned, from which proceeded a large number of books afterwards collected in the libraries of Rome, Florence, Venice, and Milan. In the monasteries of western Europe also, and especially in those of the British Islands, this system of copying was carried on. Though there were considerable diversities in the rules and practices of the monks of different orders, the elements of the monastic life were in all orders and in every country the same; and generally speaking, wherever there were monasteries, there was a manufacture of books. Yet, in some houses, these labours of the pen were much more worthily directed than in others. For while the monks of one monastery employed themselves in transcribing missals, legends, or romances, others enriched their libraries with splendid copies of the fathers of the church, and of the Holy Scriptures; and some, though a smaller number, took care to reproduce such of the classic authors as they might be acquainted with.