We give a somewhat numerous selection from a work which has hitherto remained but little known to bibliographers, by a printer whose publications are far from common, the _Vita di Sancti Padri vulgare historiada_ of Otino da Pavia de la Luna, 1501. In an earlier edition, also very rare, the initials are insignificant, and the chief interest of the volume is in the little cuts which precede the lives of the different saints. The edition from which our initials are taken is on the contrary a perfect storehouse of interesting ornamental letters. At the commencement of each book there is a half-page engraving representing an incident in the life of the first saint whose history follows, and this is surrounded by a handsome ornamental border which sometimes surrounds the whole page. Each book commences by an initial of larger size than the others. Some of these are given--the C with a saint holding a bag to another, the D with a dog, the L with four ecclesiastics, and two U’s, one with a monk tempted of the devil in the form of a beautiful woman. The smaller letters, of which there are sometimes as many as three or four on a single page, also represent incidents in the lives of the different saints, the devil being often the subject of the picture. The title-page has on it the mark of Otino da Pavia de la Luna in black and red. Some of the initials of this volume afterwards found their way into the possession of Bernardino Vitali, who used them in an _Omiliario quadragesimale_, published in 1518. We have not seen this volume, but Ongania gives reproductions of its principal typographical ornaments, amongst them a P and a U from the Otino da Pavia de la Luna alphabets. Of the initials not yet mentioned, the D and the Q, the former with a monk wearing spectacles, are from a treatise on animals by Aristotle, printed by Sessa. The curious L, with a personage in a turban, looking at a castle on the walls of which are the heads of three of its defenders, comes from an edition of the _Legendario de Sancti_ of Jacobus de Voragine, printed by Nicolo è Domenico dal Gesu. We are almost sure, however, that we have met with it in an earlier missal, and it was subsequently used in at least one impression of Lyons. The remaining letters are by different printers. The two large initials with portraits of a much later date represent respectively--the C, Cosmo de Medici; the P, Pius Romae Pontifex. CHAPTER IX OTHER ITALIAN TOWNS _Rome_