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![[picture: Book cover, Ornamentik Der Renaissance (Vol. I.)]](https://www.fromoldbooks.org/Butsch-RenaissanceOrnament/tn/000-Front-Cover-q75-350x500.jpg "[picture: Book cover, Ornamentik Der Renaissance (Vol. I.)]")
Engravings from “Die Bücher-Ornamentik Der Renaissance” (Book-Ornament of the Renaissance) by A. F. Butsch, Leipzig, 1878. Alfred Butsch was a famous bookseller and a collecter of antiquarian books; the engraved plates in the book reproduce illustrations from early printed books.
I bought my copy of this book (actually Volume II hasn’t arrive yet!) from a bookseller in Germany; there is also a fac simile by Dover, but the reproduction is not of the highest quality, so these images are better, if very incomplete.
I also have Volume II.
Title: Die Bücher-Ornamentik Der Renaissance (Vol. I.)
Published by: Verlag von G. Hirth
City: Leipzig
Date: 1878
Total items: 46
Out of copyright (called public domain in the USA), hence royalty-free for all purposes usage credit requested, or as marked.
![[picture: Chapter head: cherubs playing games]](https://www.fromoldbooks.org/Butsch-RenaissanceOrnament/wm/big/000-i-contents-chapter-head-q80-725x200.jpg "[picture: Chapter head: cherubs playing games]")
Chapter head: cherubs playing games
Cherubs playing games with hoops and a spear or arrow, in a chain-link border. Used as a page decoration at the start of the foreword of the book. [more...] [$]
![[picture: 62o.---Initial capital letter ``O'' from Dance of Death Alphabet.]](https://www.fromoldbooks.org/Butsch-RenaissanceOrnament/wm/big/062-hans-holbein-1523-death-letter-o-q75-192x200.jpg "[picture: 62o.---Initial capital letter ``O'' from Dance of Death Alphabet.]")
62o.—Initial capital letter “O” from Dance of Death Alphabet.
This decorative initial letter “O”, or drop cap, is from an alphabet designed by Hans Holbein and dating from 1523. The skeleton figures in the alphabet represent death. This [...] [more...] [$]
![[picture: 62s.---Initial capital letter ``S'' from Dance of Death Alphabet.]](https://www.fromoldbooks.org/Butsch-RenaissanceOrnament/wm/big/062-hans-holbein-1523-death-letter-s-q87-200x200.jpg "[picture: 62s.---Initial capital letter ``S'' from Dance of Death Alphabet.]")
62s.—Initial capital letter “S” from Dance of Death Alphabet.
This decorative initial letter “S”, or drop cap, is from an alphabet designed by Hans Holbein and dating from 1523. The skeleton figures in the alphabet represent death. This letter, S, has two skeletons, or Deaths, one of whom is touching and kissing a large-breasted woman while [...] [more...] [$]
![[picture: 62y.---Initial capital letter ``Y'' from Dance of Death Alphabet.]](https://www.fromoldbooks.org/Butsch-RenaissanceOrnament/wm/big/062-hans-holbein-1523-death-letter-y-q87-193x200.jpg "[picture: 62y.---Initial capital letter ``Y'' from Dance of Death Alphabet.]")
62y.—Initial capital letter “Y” from Dance of Death Alphabet.
This decorative initial letter “Y”, or drop cap, is from an alphabet designed by Hans Holbein and dating from 1523.
In the drop cap Y, Death is about to take a baby from its crib while the terrified mother looks on. There was associated text [more...] [$]
![[picture: 62i.---Initial capital letter ``I'' from Dance of Death Alphabet.]](https://www.fromoldbooks.org/Butsch-RenaissanceOrnament/wm/big/062-hans-holbein-1523-death-letter-i-q90-202x200.jpg "[picture: 62i.---Initial capital letter ``I'' from Dance of Death Alphabet.]")
62i.—Initial capital letter “I” from Dance of Death Alphabet.
This decorative initial letter “I”, or drop cap, is from an alphabet designed by Hans Holbein and dating from 1523. It is also used for “J.” It features a skeleton (Death) in the guise of an old woman, tugging at a man, a duke, with his [...] [more...] [$]
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