The calligrapher Bernardino Cataneo is known by a single manuscript copy book of twenty leaves. It is a slender volume on which to found a reputation, and yet his reputation is secure: the scripts in his book can bear comparison to the work of any professional scribe of the sixteenth century. Canteo's specimens possess unmistakable superiority as examples of formal calligraphy. Joseph Conrad inadvertently provided a good touchstone for manuscripts of this class when he wrote 'A work that aspires, however humbly, to the condition of art should carry its justification in every line.'Cataneo's copybook is surely humbled: indeed, compared with the posturing and self-advertisement of some of his contemporary scribes, he seems humility's essence. His book is just as surely a work of art, the proof of which is to be found in every line.