been a novelty, for we have many evidences that it was practised in Italy before Marco Polo was born. The mechanics of Europe had nothing to learn of the theory, and but little of the practice, of the art of xylography. All they needed was something to print, and something to print on. They were waiting for paper and for playing cards. [p122] VII The Early Printing of Italy. Printing with Ink in Italy during the Twelfth Century . . . Printed Initials in Manuscripts . . . Printed Signatures and Monograms, with Illustrations . . . Medieval Trade-Marks, with Illustrations . . . Engraved Initials probably made by Copyists who could not draw . . . Texts of Books printed from Engraved Letters . . . The Codex Argenteus of Sweden . . . Weigel’s Fac-Similes of Printing on Silk and Linen Cloth . . . Probable Method of Printing . . . Printed Fabrics made in Spain, Sicily and Italy . . . Art not derived from China . . . Antiquity of Stained Cloths . . . No Connecting Link between Hand-Stamping and Card-Printing . . . No Early Italian Image Prints . . . Story about the Two Cunios . . . Its Improbability . . . No Early Notices of Engraving on Wood . . . Not considered a New Art, nor a Great Art . . . Its Productions of Paltry Nature . . . Early Engravers had nothing to print on. * * * * * Nor is it any proof or strong argument against the antiquity of printing, that authentic specimens of wood engraving of those early times are not to be found. Their merits as works of art were not such as to render their preservation at all probable. _Ottley._ * * * * * At the beginning of the seventeenth century, a student of old Italian books called the attention of bibliographers to the strange uniformity of the initial letters in many old manuscripts,[49] some of which had been made as early as the ninth century. Each ornamental letter, wherever found or however often repeated in the same book, was of the same form. He reached the conclusion that this uniformity had been produced by engraved stamps. The announcement of this discovery induced other persons to make similar examinations, the result of which confirmed the original statement. [p123] It was proved that there was a uniformity in the shapes of the letters which could not have been made by drawing. [Illustration: The Mark of The Mark of Jacobus Arnoldus, 1345. Johannes Meynersen, 1435. [From Jackson.] [From Jackson.]]