century fine editions of classical texts coming off the Italian 
presses, Venetian and Milanese in particular, . . . had begun to 
make better known such authors of antiquity as the Middle 
Ages had not forgotten. . .” (p. 400)

But the tiny public for these humanist offerings should 
not obscure the real work of the early age of print. Febvre and 
Martin (p. 383) see it thus:

     To render the Bible directly accessible to a larger number 
     of readers, not only in Latin but also in the vernacular, to 
     furnish to students and teachers at the universities the 
     major treatises in the traditional scholastic arsenal, to 
     multiply above all the common books, breviaries, book of 
     hours necessary for the practice of liturgical ceremonies 
     and daily prayers, the writings of the mystical writers and