In one of the rooms of the Hertenstein house, at the time of its demolition early in the last century, there still remained the date 1517 on one of the wall decorations, which suggests that his work in the interior of the mansion was well advanced, if not completed, during that year. The outer walls were still unfinished when Holbein left Lucerne, for what reason is not known, but it does not seem probable that he would have abandoned an important commission for several months merely on account of some small trouble with the town authorities. The visit to Italy, it seems certain, took place in the spring or early summer of 1518, after the decorations of the Hertenstein house had been well advanced. These decorations, as far as can be judged from the few existing remains, show a certain Italian influence, but for the greater part not so strongly that it cannot be accounted for by the teaching of his father, the study of prints and engravings, and other second-hand sources. There is, however, a drawing in the Basel Gallery, described below, a preliminary study of architectural decoration for the lower part of the façade of the house, which, as Dr. Ganz points out, must have been made after Holbein’s return from Italy, for in it this new influence can be seen much more clearly and strongly, just as it can in similar work undertaken by him in Basel a year or two later, after a visit to Lombardy had brought him into personal contact with the works of some of the leading Italian masters in painting and architecture. It is clear, therefore, that the journey over the Alps formed an interlude of some duration between two sojourns in Lucerne, each extending over several months, and that during the second period he completed the Hertenstein wall-paintings.