The dictionary remained the best selling of the reference genres. Ambrogio Calepino’s Dictio-narium of 1503 rapidly pushed the Catholicon off the market and performed even better, with one edition every two years on average (compared to one every four years for the Catholicon) until 1700.174

Gutenberg used his second edition of the Catholicon to experiment with casting type not letter by letter but in two- line slugs that could be reused in later printings, saving the labor of distributing then resetting the type letter by letter.

Among reference works the Catho-licon, the carefully alphabetized large Latin dictionary composed in 1286, was the first to be printed, by Gutenberg in 1460 and again in 1469.