progress of the Renaissance during the first
decade of Lorenzo's rule was very marked. To the rapid diffusion of
printing this was largely due. Lorenzo had not imbibed the prejudices
against the new art entertained by Cosmo and Federigo of Montefeltro. He
looked at the practical, not the sentimental, side of the question as
regards the new invention. Having seen that the press could throw off, in
a few days, scores of copies of any work, of which it took an amanuensis
months to produce one; also that the scholars of all Italy could be
furnished almost immediately, and at a low price, with the texts of any
manuscript they desired, while they had to wait months for a limited
number of copies whose cost was wellnigh prohibitive, he supported the
new invention from the outset. Having resolved to further his father's
efforts to establish printing in Florence, he stimulated the local
goldsmith, Bernardo Cennini, to turn his attention to type-casting in
metal, and even agreed to pay him an annual grant from the year 1471
until he had fairly settled himself in business. Nor did he confine his
favors to him. John of Mainz and Nicholas of Breslau, who arrived in
Florence, the former in 1472 and the latter in 1477, also participated
in his open-hearted liberality. Printing struck its roots deep into the
Tuscan community and flourished excellently. Though the Florentine craft
never attained the reputation of the Venetian Aldi and Asolani, the
Giunti of Rome, the Soncini of Fano, the Stephani of Paris, and Froben
of Basel, it had the name, for a time at least, of being one of the most
accurate of all presses.

To Lorenzo it owed this celebrity. At an early date he perceived that the
new art would be of little value if there were not careful press readers.
He was therefore among the first to induce scholars of distinction to
engage in this task. For example, he enlisted the aid of Cristoforo
Landino, who in his _Disputationes Camaldunenses_ had really inaugurated
the science of textual criticism by urging that a careful comparison
of the various codices should constitute the preliminary step in any
reproduction of the classics. Landino's work on Vergil and Horace merits
the warmest praise. Lorenzo also impressed Poliziano into the work, whose
labors in marking the various readings, in adding _scholia_ and "notes"
illustrative of the text of Catullus, Propertius, Ovid, etc., were of the
utmost value. To Lorenzo and to his younger brot