Magno's Summary of the Staff and Salaries of 15th Century Venetian Printing Offices

"The press itself employs three people: the compositor, the inker [printer's devil], and the pressman; a small printing house might have six employees, while one that has from six to eight presses with thirty to forty workers is a firm of substantial dimensions. Only the compositor has to have specialized training, and, judging from satirical comments of the time, there were a lot of unemployed servants and penniless students ready to fill any jobs that might open up. In any case, it's a well-paid job; in Padova in 1475 a compositor earns three ducats a month, plus a ducat's worth of books that he can re-sell. Three ducats is also the monthly salary of a hydraulic engineer, an occupation certainly of no secondary importance in a city like Venice, whose survival depends  on the proper regulation of water flow in its rivers and in keeping the sea from entering the lagoon. Apprentices are paid about one-tenth the salary of an expert compositor and are provided with free room and board for a period of three years. . . . A proofreader could expect to be paid somewhere between four and six ducats per month" (Magno, Bound in Venice. The Serene Republic and the Dawn of the Book [2013] 27-28).