"Venice was a city of printers and readers. In his World of Aldus Manutius, Martin Lowry made a rough guess that, in 1500, Venetian presses produced twenty books per member of the city’s population. There were more printshops – and more booksellers, stationers, bookbinders – in Venice than anywhere else in Europe: twice as many editions were printed there than in Paris, its closest rival."

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v45/n24/erin-maglaque/case-endings-and-calamity