The art of printing, as the reading world has been frequently informed, was invented in the fifteenth century, and undoubtedly had, to a considerable extent, a destructive effect upon the craft of professional copyists. But in the fifteenth century the art of the writer and that of the illuminator had long been separate professions. There was no particular reason, therefore, why the invention of printing should interfere with the illuminator. As a matter of fact, it made little difference. Nor, indeed, did printing entirely put a stop to the professional career of the scribe. It was prophesied, before practical experience of facts proved the contrary, that the invention of the railway engine would abolish the horse. The printing-press did not abolish the penman, but it certainly spoiled his trade. We have seen in the course of the preceding chapters that it did not spoil the trade of the illuminator. Nor was it quite owing to the fact that many printed books were so adorned as to appear like illuminated MSS. More than one wealthy patron absolutely declined to have anything to do with printed books. The matter was too vulgar and too cheap. The last Duke of Urbino was a prince of this lofty way of thinking, and scarcely a court in Europe but continued to have MSS. produced as if no such thing as the printing-press were known. How they were multiplied in Spain and France we have seen in detail. We will now proceed to take a farewell look at the German and Italian libraries, in order to see how the illustrious presses of Mainz, Strassburg, Augsburg, Köln, Munich, Vienna, Venice, Milan, Florence, and Rome affected the ateliers of the great schools of illumination established in most of these cities. What do we find? In point of fact, some of the richest, most magnificent books ever produced by the illuminator, not only whilst the press was still a novelty, but long after it had become perfectly familiar to everybody. For several of the cities aforesaid we have the means of proof: thus for Mainz, at the end of the superb copy of the Mazarine Bible, now at Paris, is the following inscription: "Iste liber illuminatus, legatus and completus est henricum Cremer vicari? ecclesie collegiate Sancti Stephani Moguntini sub anno dni Melesimo quatring entesimo quinquagesimo Sexto, festo assumptiois gloriose Virginis Marie. Deo gratias alleluya." This was in 1456, the year before the first press was set up. In 1524 we have two most splendidly illuminated MSS.--a Missal and a Prayer-book--executed by order of Albert of Brandenburg, Archbishop of Mainz. Two richer examples of the German Renaissance cannot easily be imagined. We cannot dilate upon them. We may, however, truly say that together with very many other examples of illuminated work, both in manuscripts and printed books, they show the art of the illuminator to be no less splendid or elaborate after the invention of printing than it was before.