"Some from friendship, some from interest, the greater part because they have nothing to do,--for then 'Let us go,' they say, 'to Aldo's.' They come in crowds and sit gaping,-- 'Non missura cutem, nisi plena cruoria hirudo.' I do not speak of those who come to read me either poems or prose, generally rough and unpolished, for publication, for I defend myself from these by no answer or else a very brief one, which I hope nobody will take in ill part, since it is done, not from pride or scorn, but because all my leisure is taken up in publishing books of established fame. As for those who come for no reason, we make bold to admonish them in classical words in a sort of edict placed over our door, 'WHOEVER YOU ARE, Aldo requests you, if you want anything, ask it in few words and depart, unless, like Hercules, you come to lend the aid of your shoulders to the weary Atlas. Here will always be found in that case something for you to do, however many you may be.'" We can well understand that the publication of the Greek Grammar, Aristotle, and kindred authors must have been a work of time. But five books were produced in two years, and that with the aid of two scholarly editors, besides the zealous help of friends, to which we have referred above. In addition to the costly methods that Aldus was forced to pursue, he could find no type that suited him, and set himself to invent one; that known at first as Aldino, and later Italic, was the result. There is a tradition that he aimed to reproduce the even and clear chirography of Petrarch, and himself described the result as a type "of the greatest beauty, such as was never done before." Aldus hastened to ask of the Signoria the sole right to use this type for ten years, which privilege was granted him upon the following appeal:-- {330} "I supplicate that for ten years no other should be allowed to print in cursive letters of any sort in the dominion of your Serenity, nor to sell books printed in any other countries in any part of the said dominion, under pain to whoever breaks this law of forfeiting the books and paying a fine of two hundred ducats for each offence, which fine shall be divided into three parts,--one for the officer who shall convict, another for the _Pietà_, the third for the informer, etc." Query, was this not putting a strong temptation before the informer and the convicting officer? The type we now use in italics is the descendant of the Aldino, but not so delicate and graceful as the ancestor. The first book printed in this manner appeared in 1501, and, as seems most fitting, was the poems of Petrarch, printed directly from his own manuscript. The Aldine mark on the titlepages of this great printer's books was the anchor and dolphin; and Lorenzo of Pavia said of this volume to the Duchess Isabella Gonzaga, it is "a rare thing, which, like your Ladyship, has no paragon."