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256 and had no features to justify their preservation. We cannot wonder that copies of the engraved Donatus are scarce, but we must not infer from their present scarcity that they were not common before the year 1450. It is probable that more copies were printed of this than of any pictorial block-book; although we find no copies, we have trustworthy evidences that the Donatus was printed before types were made.

That the Donatus was engraved and printed before the invention of typography is distinctly stated in the book now known as the Cologne Chronicle, which was published in that city by John Koelhoff, in the year 1499. The name of the author is unknown, but he writes with the confidence of a clear-minded thinker and a candid chronicler. He says that the following statement was communicated to him, by word of mouth, "by Master Ulric Zell, of Hanau, now a printer in Cologne, through whom the art was brought to Cologne."

Mariangelus Accursius, a learned Italian of the fifteenth century, made a similar acknowledgment of the indebtedness of the men whom he regarded as the inventors of typography to the unknown printers of the Donatus in Holland. He says:

This extract first appeared in an Appendix to the Library of the Vatican, which was written by Angelo Rocca, and