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Although the Italians are not usually associated with naval development some of the most important evolutions in naval vessels have been suggested from Italy. In the second part of 19th century they made the first very large iron clads of the Dandolo type. Cuniberti conceived and designed the battle cruiser type with unit calibre guns in the main battery and with subsidiary batteries and high speed. It was he who also suggested the further development of this into the “dreadnought” and actually went to England with the permission of the Italian government to direct in building the first one of these vessels that was laid down some fifteen years ago.

Italy must yield to Germany’s claim for priority in the invention of printing, but while the Germans invented, no nation did so much as Italy for the diffusion of printing, for the development of the art, it very soon became in their hands and for the encouragement of every detail of fine bookmaking that came with it. Above all Italy was the fruitful mother of inventions that made the printing art of immensely greater value to mankind than it was as it came from the hands of the original German inventors. Henry Louis Bullen, the curator of a museum of typography, said in 1914:

“From 1465 to 1501 thirty-five years printing was established in seventy-three Italian cities. Each printer had to make his own presses and types and cases and other appliances; there were no manufacturers or merchants making or selling these necessaries. Sixteen hundred and eighty (1,680) distinct type-faces have been identified as the product of the Italian printers in that brief period, including the most beautiful Roman and Text types ever used, and the first Italic. Was ever a greater boon in the printing industry? Was ever an art more eagerly adopted? Printers outside of Germany have been influenced more by the early Italian workmanship than by the German. Every printer or typefounder among us is the debtor of the earlier Italian printers, none the less so if unconscious of the obligation and ignorant of the benefactors.”