cent, are in Latin. But just as the printed book had routed the 
manuscript between 1500 and 1510, so the vernacular was 
soon to supersede Latin. For it was inevitable that a larger 
market existed for the printed book within the bounds of a 
national speech than the international, clerical elite of Latin 
readers could ever muster. Book production was a heavy capital 
venture and needed the utmost markets to survive. Febvre and 
Martin write (p. 479): “Thus the sixteenth century, era of the 
renewal of ancient culture, was the time when Latin began to 
lose ground. From 1530 certainly this trend is clear. The 
reading public . . . becomes therefore more and more a lay 
public—often of women and the middle class among whom 
many were not familiar with Latin.”

     The problem of “what the public wants” is central to 
printing from the first. But just as book format long retained