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 reputed the German apostle of the modern theory of property in literary productions, writing in 1764, explains as meaning respectively "non-individual" and "individual" (eigenthümlich) works, the former those issued under printers' privileges, the latter the works of contemporary authors, copyrightable in our modern sense. At the close of the seventeenth century, the book-fair at Leipzig began to assume dominating importance, and the privileges from the Commission of the Elector of Saxony became more authoritative, perhaps, than the imperial privileges issued from Frankfort.

Venice, among whose chief glories were to be the master printers Aldus, was the first and foremost of the Italian states to encourage the new art. The first privilege granted by her Senate, in 1469, indeed antedated the first in Germany by thirty-two years, the first in France by thirty-four years, and the first in England by forty-nine years. This was to John of Speyer, a German printer, for a monopoly for printing in Venice for five years, with prohibition of importation of works printed elsewhere, which he did not live to enjoy. The first known author's copyright was granted September 1, 1486, to Antonio Sabellico, historian to the Republic, of the sole right to publish or authorize the publication of his "Decade of Venetian affairs," not limited in time, with a penalty of five hundred ducats for infringement. In 1491 the Senate gave to the publicist Peter of Ravenna and the publisher of his choice the sole right, without mention of term, to print and sell his "Phoenix," usually cited as the first instance of copyright. In 1493 one Barbaro was granted a privilege for ten years in the work of his deceased brother, and In the same year an editor's copyright was granted to Joannes Nigro for his edition of "Haliabas," his