Other masters there are in plenty, whom we must neglect, as we shift our abode to Basle for a moment. We find ourselves here, about 1516, in the midst of a thriving publishing center. Enterprising printers seek to secure pleasing decorations and illustrations for their scientific and literary output. They look for a good draughtsman to design some tasteful headings and end-pieces, borders and initials, and are well pleased with the samples submitted by a young newcomer, by name Hans Holbein. At first the cutting of his designs offers some difficulties, but when the right man has appeared, when Hans Lützelburger has joined his skill to the genius of Holbein, their joint productions attain a peerless mastery. High summits in art always invite comparison; this is true of Dürer and Holbein, even though these two great German masters are so widely different from each other. Dürer is nowhere greater than in engraving, while Holbein excels in painting; both are masters of woodcut. Dürer, with his scholarly, analytical nature, ponders over the deep, essential meaning which underlies the multitude of his observations, and sets down his conclusions in types broadly generalized. His St. Jerome--to quote but one instance--is not so much a specific old man in his study as the expression of a mental attitude common to mankind generally. Holbein is more a man of impulse, quick to express himself in a direct manner full of life. He is more sensual, and has much feeling for pleasing form and a beautiful flow of lines. He accents the event itself more strongly than Dürer, who is given to express himself rather by association of ideas. It is a significant fact that Dürer chooses his subjects with preference from the figurative New Testament, with its parables, while Holbein prefers to illustrate the Old Testament, a book of essentially historical character. Every scene is plainly told and intensely human in Holbein’s Biblical illustrations, as well as in that masterpiece of his, the “Dance of Death.” We cannot but marvel at the feeling of spaciousness in these small prints, at the lifelike action of the expressive little figures, at the perfect harmony of these figures and their surroundings. At the time of Dürer’s death, in 1528, the long period of warfare, devastation, and misery had begun which was to end only after the Thirty Years’ War. Emperor Maximilian was dead; Charles V had broken the power of France in Italy; his mercenaries had sacked Rome, and incidentally ruined Marcantonio, the Italian engraver. His promising school was dispersed. It was a period of decline, both north and south of the Alps.