in his edition of the Institutes of Justinian of 1468, reminded his readers that he paid great sums to the wise men who corrected his texts, but he adds that there were even then rival printers who did not take proper precautions against errors of the press. It may be assumed that Gabriel Petrus of Venice was one of the growing number of negligent printers, for he published a book in 1478 with two pages of errata. Before the fifteenth century closed, lists of errata were frequent. Sometimes errors were so numerous that the faulty book had to be reprinted. Robert Gaguin of Paris was so disgusted with the mistakes made by a printer of that city in an edition of French legends (1497) that he ordered a second edition from a printer of Lyons, but the change of printer was not happy: the reprinted book was as faulty as the first.
Cardinal Bellarmine of Rome had a provoking experience in 1581. He cancelled the first edition of his book printed at Rome, and sent an amended copy to a printer of Venice, hoping to get absolutely perfect work, but the new edition was also full of errors.
A book of Picus Mirandola, printed at Strasburg in 1507, in the real cradle of typography, contains fifteen pages of errata.
The fullest list of errata known is that of a book called The Anatomy of the Mass, printed in 1561. This book of one hundred and seventy-two pages is followed by errata covering fifteen pages. In
