[30] Ferrara is known to art students in connection with initial letters by the alphabet of Fra Vespasiano Amphiareo, a Renaissance calligraphist, which is often reproduced in works on manuscript ornamentation. For the general student this work, which took rank at once as one of the most artistic publications of the time, is chiefly interesting on account of the portraits of the celebrated women whose histories it relates, but besides these there is a nearly complete alphabet of initials which harmonise perfectly with the woodcut engravings. Although different in treatment, the design is very similar to that used by Regiomontanus of Nuremberg, but with the addition of an occasional mascaron, or head of a dolphin. Very decorative, although simple, on the printed page, they lose some of their effect when brought together as an alphabet. The volume begins with a linear M representing the Virgin and child. The other set of initials, of an entirely different kind, is taken from the _Missale Carthusiense_, printed by the monks at their monastery at Ferrara in 1503, and generally known as the Missal of Ferrara. _Missale secundum ordinem Carthusiensem. Impressum in Monasterio Carthusie Ferrarie Diligenter emendatum per Monachos ejusdem Domus Regnante Excellentissimo D.D. Duce Hercule Esten. Anno a nativitate domini MCCCCCIII._ In many of the other Italian towns, although printing was established at an early date, the ornamentation of books was comparatively neglected, and there are few or no initials of interest to be mentioned. Foligno, for example, was one of the first places where the art of printing was introduced. J. Neumeister, one of the workmen and associates of Gutenberg, published there in 1470 a superb folio, _Leonardi Aretini Bruni de bello italico adversus Gothos_. At Milan, Philip of Lavagna gave a small quarto, the _Miracoli de la Gloriosa Verzene Maria_, dated 1469; but this date is a mistake, and it was really in 1474 or 1479 that the tract appeared. Zarotus was printing at this town in 1471, and three years later Christopher Valdarfer began operations. When initials occur in the books of these printers they resemble somewhat those of Venice, but they are of unequal merit, some being coarsely cut and merely curious, others of the highest artistic excellence. Of the first, the M and T from the _Opus auree et inexplicabilis bonitatis et continentie_, printed by Joannes de Castellione in 1513, will serve as an example. The six other letters are from works by Gotardus de Ponte, and are to be found also in a book called _Calipsychia_ of 1511; in the _Life of Saint Veronica_ by Isidorus de Isolanis, of 1518; also in an _Opus auree_ which seems to have been printed everywhere, dated 1513. The Q with a very black border, a circle of white dots, an ornament in each corner, and a saint with crozier looking to the right, comes from the _Sermons of St. Bernard_, Milan, Leonard Pachel, 1495.