But as a modern writer has said: ‘Dès que la Renaissance lumineuse a paru, traînant derrière elle l’admirable cortège de ses maîtres délicats, fils de la Grèce antique qui moulaient la feuille divine de l’acanthe sur le sein d’une vierge endormie, le vieux monde s’écroula et l’ornement gothique fit place à la triomphante et poétique arabesque devenue l’aurore nouvelle.’ It is in the _Ritter von Thurn_, published by Furter in 1515, that we see first this influence in the form of a title by Urs Graf, copied from the Venetian original, and ornamented with dolphins and acanthus. Besides a great many titles, Urs Graf also engraved a certain number of alphabets, inspired to a great extent by those of Tacuinus de Tridino, but wanting in originality, and generally inferior to the originals. The reader can compare the two kinds of initials. But it was the arrival of a young artist of genius that completed the revolution at Basle in the ornamentation of books. This is not the place to discuss the merit of Holbein as a painter, nor to study the long series of title-pages, borders, friezes, and printers’ marks which he composed for different printers of Basle and elsewhere. We are concerned here only with his alphabets; and of those which bear more particularly the mark of his genius, the alphabet of Death occupies the first place. This as a composition is a _chef d’œuvre_, and it was engraved on wood by an artist of the very highest merit, Hans Lützelberger. These initials, notwithstanding their small dimensions, about twenty-four millimetres square, can well bear comparison with the larger engravings in _Les Simulachres et Historiées Faces de la Mort_ which was to appear several years later at Lyons, in 1538, _chez les frères Trechsel Soubz l’escu de Coloigne_. The alphabet is composed of twenty-four letters, and several of the original proof-sheets are to be found in different Continental museums. Basle and Dresden each possess one. The letters of this alphabet may be met with in different works published by Bebelius, such as the New Testament in Greek of 1525, that of 1531, the _Galen_ of 1538, and particularly in the two folio volumes of Aristotle which appeared in 1532. In the five first, A to E, the body of the letter is in white. In the others there is a double outline which softens their appearance and reduces their size. Each of the letters merits a separate description, but the reproductions given, as far as they go, obviate all commentary, permitting the reader to judge for himself, and to appreciate the justice of the praise that has been lavished upon them by art critics.