[Illustration: TYPE OF THE ALDINE VIRGIL, 1501 (_exact size._)] The Aldine mark, which appears on Aldus' edition of Dante's _Terze Rime_ in 1502, and on nearly all the numerous works subsequently issued from this famous press, is a dolphin twined about an anchor, and the name ALDVS divided by the upper part of the anchor. This device continued to be used after the death of Aldus Manutius in 1515 by his descendants, who carried on the work of the press until 1597. France was somewhat late in availing herself of the advantages offered by the new art, although Peter Schoeffer had had a bookseller's shop in Paris. In 1470, Guillaume Fichet, Rector of the Sorbonne, invited three German printers--Ulric Gering, Michael Friburger and Martin Cranz--to come and set up a printing-press at the Sorbonne. The first work they produced there was the _Epistolæ_ of Gasparinus Barzizius. For this and a few other volumes they used a very beautiful Roman type, but after the closing of the Sorbonne press in 1472 they established other presses elsewhere in Paris and adopted a Gothic character similar to that of the contemporary French manuscripts, and therefore more likely to be popular with French readers. The first work printed in the French language, however, is believed to have been executed, chiefly, at any rate, by an Englishman, probably at Bruges, five years later, that is, about 1476. The book was _Le Recueil des Histoires de Troyes_, the Englishman was William Caxton. Caxton also printed at the same place, and about the year 1475, the first book in the English language--a translation of _Le Recueil_. In both these works he may have been assisted by Colard Mansion, believed by some to have been his typographical tutor, though so eminent an authority as Mr Blades holds that _Le Recueil_ was printed by Mansion alone, and that Caxton had no hand in it. As with so many other questions concerning early typography, there seems to be no means of deciding the point. The first work in French which was issued in Paris was the _Grands Chroniques de France_, printed by Pasquier Bonhomme in 1477. Holland and the Low Countries can show no printed book with a date earlier than 1473, while the celebrated city of Haarlem's first dated book was produced ten years later. But printing was very possibly practised in these countries at an earlier period, and some undated books exist which those who ascribe the invention of typography to Holland consider to have been executed by Dutch printers before any German books had been given to the world. Those who stand by Germany of course think otherwise.