Venice soon became a city of printers. Between 1472 and 1500 one hundred and fifty-five printers established themselves there, some of them being the most celebrated printers of that age. In other cities of the Republic the printing of books rapidly grew into an enormous industry. We can scarcely realize what the demand for books became so soon as it could be satisfied. The slow processes of caligraphy had only created a desire it could never content. At the same time the exquisite ornamentation of the manuscripts had fostered a taste for dainty books which a plain-printed page could not satisfy; and then, too, those who could afford the silky vellum, with {255} its lovely miniatures, decorative initial letters, and graceful borders, did not relish books so cheaply made that any one could buy them, and no distinction was attached to their ownership. Thus it resulted that the early printers made a few vellum copies of their works, and employed the miniaturists to ornament them in the style of the manuscripts. Among these books those of Jenson, made at Venice, are the most remarkable, and bring fabulous prices when sold in the present day. After 1480 the printers employed engravers, and from that time the Venetian books were very notable. For two centuries Venice was the centre for printing, and besides her strictly literary publications she furnished school-books to all Italy; books of exquisite designs to lace-makers and embroiderers; missals, breviaries and books of hours to the devout; and to the general reader, books of romantic adventures, poems, and numberless accounts of festivals and important events. These, now literally worth their weight in gold, were made in little shops where the industrious artisans actually made the designs and executed the engravings of the books they printed. The amount of printing and bookmaking done at Venice up to the end of the seventeenth century, as compared with all the rest of Italy and Lyons, is simply amazing. Of the great printer, Aldus, I shall speak more at length elsewhere. In 1498 the Senate granted to Ottaviano Petrucci the privilege of printing music for twenty years, for which time Venice may be said to have monopolized that very important art. Petrucci ceased to publish in 1525; and it is believed that he worked alone, as later music printers were greatly his inferiors. His books are now very rare, and proportionately valuable. In all these important affairs the wisdom of the Venetians is most apparent, and the results of their system are {256} its justification in many directions. But in the midst of great matters the smaller ones were by no means forgotten, and jealousy of individualism was the motive that induced the Senate gravely to make and severely to execute laws which seem to us most puerile and unworthy.