Printing was introduced into Venice by Johannes de Spira in 1469, and, as showing the extent to which it was quickly carried, Panzer reckons that up to the end of the fifteenth century, no fewer than 189 printers had established themselves here, and had issued close upon 3,000 works. From 1469 to 1480, over sixty master printers were found within the precincts of the city. The first of the superb series of early printed books produced here is the folio edition of Cicero, “Epistolæ ad Familiares,” 1469, although the honour of being the most magnificent production appears to be equally divided between the Livy and the Virgil, 1470, executed by John of Spira’s brother and successor Vindelinus. So far as we know, neither of the two brothers, nor Nicolas Jenson, 1470-88, many of whose beautiful books rivalled the De Spiras’, used a Mark. [Illustration: ERHARDUS RATDOLT. Erhardi Ratdolt foelicia conspice signa. Testata artificem qua valet ipse manum.] Erhardus Ratdolt may be regarded as one of the earliest, if not actually the first Venetian printer to adopt a Mark. From 1476 to 1478 he was in partnership with Bernardus Pictor and Petrus Loslein de Langencen, but from the latter year to 1485 he was exercising the art alone. (It is not altogether foreign to our subject to mention that this firm printed the “Calendar” of John de Monteregio, 1476, which has the first ornamental title known.) In 1487, Ratdolt was at Augsburg, and perhaps his claims as a printer are German rather than Venetian, but as his best work was executed during his sojourn in Venice, it will be more convenient to include him in the present chapter. Like so many others of the early printers, he regarded his own performances with no little self-complacency, for in his colophons he describes himself, “Vir solertissimus, imprimendi arte nominatissimus, artis impressoriæ magister apprimè famosus, perpolitus opifex, vir sub orbe notus,” and so forth. To him is attributed the credit of having invented ink of a golden colour; and he was the first to employ the “flourishes,” (“literæ florentes”) or initial letters formed of floral scrolls and ornaments borrowed from the Italian manuscripts, and sometimes printed in red and sometimes in black. Joannes and Gregorius de Gregoriis, 1480-1516, and Gregorius alone, 1516-28, make a very good show in the way of printed books, one of the most notable being the first quarto edition of Boccaccio, 1516, and another the “Deutsch Römisch Brevier,” 1518, which is printed in black and red Gothic letter with numerous full-page woodcuts and borders. Contemporary with these two brothers and also famous as a prolific printer comes Ottaviano Scotto, “Civis Modoetiẽsis,” 1480-1500, and his heirs, 1500-31, of whose Mark we give an exact reproduction. Baptista de Tortis, 1481-1514, also issued a number of interesting books, more particularly folio editions of the classics, copies of which are still frequently met with, and of whose