Our beloved son Aldus Manutius, a citizen of Rome, set forth to us some time ago that when the plague was raging he, being in danger of death, took an oath that if he escaped he would enter the holy orders of priesthood. Seeing that since he has recovered his health, he does not persist in his vow, and seeing that in his condition of poverty he cannot subsist otherwise than by the work of his hands, whereby he earned his living, now therefore he desires to remain a layman, and we have granted his petition. We commission you therefore and command your fraternity to absolve in our name the said Aldus from the vow he took, if he humbly requests you to do so, and if things stand as he says, requiring of him a return by such other acts of piety as it shall seem good to your conscience to impose, and this if there be no other obstacle. Given in Rome, August the eleventh, 1498, in the sixth year of our Pontificate. It is characteristic of the far-reaching power of the Council of Ten that this curious document should have been found in their Archives. One year after having been released from his vow, Aldus married Maria, daughter of Andrea Torresano. I do not knew whether an attachment which perhaps dated from before the plague could have had anything to do with the great printer’s aversion to fulfilling his vow; if so, the world is deeply indebted to his wife. There was, however, a considerable interval in his career after 1498, during which no books were issued by the Aldine press, and those belonging to the first period have a much higher value than the rest. Possibly children were born to the couple and died between the time of their marriage and the birth of their son Paulus Manutius in 1512, three years before the death of his father Aldus. The dates show the absurdity of the story that Aldus brought up his son to be a scholar and a printer like himself. He died when that son, who was destined to be famous also, was less than four years old. He breathed his last on the sixth of January 1516, being not yet sixty-seven years old, surrounded by his faithful friends and his manuscripts. Owing to his having married so late, and to his son not having been born till thirteen years after his marriage, the lives of the father and son cover the period between 1449 and 1574, no less than one hundred and twenty-five years. Prince Pio, his former pupil and one of the most distinguished members of the Aldine Academy, claimed the honour of burying him at Carpi, a feudal holding of the Pio family. His body was carried thither with great pomp, and he was laid in state in the church of Saint Patrinian, surrounded by books, and was finally buried in the Prince’s family vault. Another and very original type of scholar was Marin Sanudo, whose name occurs so constantly in all writings that deal with the sixteenth century in Venice. He was of a patrician family, and