But all the conditions of Holbein's daily life would lead him to prefer Basel proper, and to choose the quarter in which he bought a home eight years later. This was then the western quarter of Gross-Basel, along the river-face of which ran the high southern and western bank of the Rhine, the _Rheinhalde_, now _St. Johann Vorstadt_. About where the present _Blumenrain_ ends stood the arch, or _Schwibbogen_. Further on still stood the "Gate of the Cross" (_Kreuzthor_), by the House of the Brothers of St. Anthony, the ancient _Kloesterli_ of Basel. Before the Commandery of St. John got themselves included within the city wall the Kreuzthor was its western gate. The whole district of _ze Crueze_, so called because its boundaries were crosses before towers replaced them, has however become absorbed in the St. Johann Vorstadt, while the Kreuzthor has disappeared altogether. The quarter was a favourite one with members of the Fishers' Guild and with decent folk of small mean s. As early as 1517 the Fishers' Company had extended itself so greatly as to become a notable institution of the Vorstadt, including many members from Klein-Basel also; while its military record was a proud one. But it was in this year, while Holbein was making his visit to Lucerne and beyond, that this guild took the more truly descriptive name which it bears to this day, that of the "Vorstadt Association" (_Vorstadtgesellschaft_). And to this association, which in after years gave him a famous banquet, Holbein, we know, belonged later on, if not now. Every day would take him to the Fischmarkt,--the great square humming with activity, crowded with inns, public-houses, shops, booths, dwelling-houses,--the trade mart of every nationality. The Cornmarkt near by, now the _Marktplatz_, with its almost finished Rathaus, was the centre of official civic life. When the great bell clanged on the Rathaus, and its flag was flung out, not only every professional soldier, but every guild and every male above fourteen, knew his appointed place at the wall, and took it. But every day, and all day, the Fischmarkt flung out its peaceful standards, or rallied men to this side or to that with the tocsin of its presses,--the old Amerbach printing-house "of the Settle" (_zum Sessel_), which was Johann Froben's home and printing-house in 1520.