The O, also with three children, belongs to one of the alphabets in the same style, which are no doubt imitated from Venetian models. We must mention the alphabet of the Master I F on a black ground in publications by Froben after 1518, the first letters of which represent the labours of Hercules, the following ones different scriptural and classical subjects. The B with a child in its cradle, and the E (a winged child on a sea-horse), are samples of the initials from Basle books of the time, which are possibly by Ambrose rather than Hans Holbein, as are the K and Z with children and grotesques, on a black ground with stars. But, however interesting the work of Holbein, however varied and supple his genius, we cannot do more than give specimens of the whole. The reader who is desirous of fuller documentation can refer to Woltmann’s _Holbein und seine Zeit_, Leipsic, 1872; to the _Bücher-Ornamentik_ of Butsch, or to the more complete collection of Holbein’s Initials, recently published by Heitz. Holbein’s alphabets and initials were soon adopted by all the printers of Basle, and with few exceptions until 1545 there is nothing to note of any other artist. It was in this year, the date of Holbein’s death, that the Basle edition of Vesalius’s _De Corporis humani fabrica_ was printed, a work that may be considered as one of the most remarkable products of the German Renaissance. This book had been previously published at Venice, and its success was so great that it was shortly after pirated at Cologne. Vesalius, in his preface to the Basle edition, alludes to the want of international copyright, to the dishonesty, and particularly to the vandalism, of publishers who substituted detestable copies for the wonderful originals of his anatomical plates, which he would have preferred to lend them. Besides these plates, which have never been surpassed in beauty, there is the admirable frontispiece by J. van Calcar representing a lesson on anatomy, and two series of initial letters depicting children, who, with inimitable seriousness, are acting as medical consultants. In a later edition Van Calcar’s initials are replaced by a much inferior set by another hand. _Zurich._--There are several interesting alphabets in the books published by Froschouer of Zurich, the most important of which is illustrated with scenes from the Bible. The two A’s, the D, the reversed D that serves as a C, and the F, are said to be by N. Manuel, the S with Jesus overturning the money-changers’ tables in the Temple by Ambrose Holbein. CHAPTER V LÜBECK AND BAMBERG