In cutting and casting the first type a style of heavy-faced letter, much like that written by the mediaeval monks--the so-called _Gothic_--was used. Caxton, in England, used this at first, and the Germans have continued its use up to the present time. The Italians, however, soon devised a type with letters like those used by the old Romans--the so- called Roman type, this type which was soon accepted in all non-German European countries. The Italians also devised a compressed type--the _Italic_--which enabled printers to get more words on a page. Venice, almost from the first, became the center of the book trade, and books literally poured from the presses there. By 1500 as many as five thousand editions, often of as many as a thousand copies to an edition, had been printed in Italy. [22] Of this number 2835 had been printed in Venice, and most of them by the Aldine press of Aldus Manutius, and edited by the _Academia_ (p. 250) connected therewith. [23] By 1500 many books had also been printed in a number of northern cities, [24] and Lyons, Paris, Basel, Nuremberg, Cologne, Leipzig, and London soon became centers of the northern book trade. Caxton in England soon vied with Aldus in Venice as a printer of beautiful books. When we remember that it required fifty-three days (Sandys) to make by hand one copy of Quintilian's _Institutes_, and forty-five copyists twenty-two months to reproduce two hundred volumes for the Medicean Library at Florence (R. 130), the enormous importance of an invention which would print rapidly a thousand or more copies of a book, all exactly alike and free from copyist errors, can be appreciated. It tremendously cheapened books, [25] made the general use of the textbook method of teaching possible, and paved the way for a great extension of schools and learning (R. 134). From now on the press became a formidable rival to the pulpit and the sermon, and one of the greatest of instruments for human progress and individual liberty. From this time on educational progress was to be much more rapid than it had been in the past. From an educational point of view the invention of printing might almost be taken as marking the close of the mediaeval and the beginning of modern times. RISE OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY. The new influences awakened by the Revival of Learning found expression in other directions. One of these was geographical discovery, itself an outgrowth of that series of movements known as the _Crusades_, with the accompanying revival of trade and commerce. These led to travel, exploration, and discovery. By the latter part of the thirteenth century the most extensive travel which had taken place since the days of ancient Rome had begun, and in the next two and a half centuries a great expansion of the known world took place. [Illustration: FIG. 75. THE WORLD AS KNOWN TO CHRISTIAN EUROPE BEFORE COLUMBUS]