Venice was the home of Titian, and at the present time the great artist was at the height of his glory. In 1518 two brothers, Nicholas and Dominic dal Gesù, published a translation of the celebrated "Golden Legend" of Voragine. The plates which were added to the work were manifestly inspired by the school of the Venetian master. Unhappily the engravers have not always equalled the genius of the drawings. To resume, the city of Venice was, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, one of the most prolific in publishers and artists of talent. Since the first establishments of the Germans, typography had successively employed in Venice Nicholas Jenson, a Frenchman, inventor of the Roman character; Erhard Ratdolt, the first to employ illustration there; and Aldus Manutius, scholar and printer, whose progress in printing elevated that art to the highest rank among human discoveries; there were also remarkable engravers and draughtsmen, among others Guadagnino and Giunta, besides the anonymous masters of the school of Titian. The part of Venice in the movement, then, was great, but it may be explained by the riches of its citizens, the extent of its commerce, and the genius it possessed. If we now return from Venice to the north, to Milan, the school of Leonardo da Vinci will make itself apparent in the Book. In order of date we will mention the _Mysterii Gesta Beatæ Veronicæ Virginis_, published by Gotardo de Ponte 1518, small quarto, with figures in the style of Luini, and Vitruvius in Italian by Cesariano. On the testimony of the author, the wood engravings in a book of Fra Luca Pacioli, _De Divina Proportione_, are attributed to Leonardo da Vinci. M. Delaborde does not believe this, but M. Passavant does. [Illustration: Fig. 44.--Title of the _Theuerdanck_. The flourishes of the letters are printed.] In Germany, Nuremberg continued, with Albert Dürer and the artists of his school, to furnish book illustrations at the beginning of the century. The master reprinted his valuable engravings of the "Life of the Virgin" in 1511, and also the "Apocalypse." But after him the art commenced to decline; a hundred years later nothing remained of the honour and glory gained by Germany in the commencement. Among the most interesting of the Nuremberg publications is a chivalric poem by Melchior Pfinzfing, composed for the marriage of Maximilian and Mary of Burgundy. As M. Delaborde in his _Débuts de I'Imprimerie_ well remarks, this is not a book destined for sale by a bookseller; it is a work of art destined by an emperor for his friends, and he saw that it was an unapproachable work. [Illustration: Fig. 45.--Plate taken from the _Theuerdanck_, representing Maximilian and Mary of Burgundy. Engraved on wood after Schäufelein.]