These two volumes guide the reader through a biblical embodiment of the Latin alphabet from A-Z. Each letter is luxuriously reimagined, adorning them both in the manner of the pagan classical grotesque as well as Judeo-Christian scenes of biblical figures whose first names correspond to each respective letter. These highly imaginative and iconographically pregnant engravings were executed by Johann Theodor de Bry, son of the famous Frankfurt printer of New World voyages, Theodor de Bry. JHU holds both a bound version of the first printed edition of the younger de Bry’s alphabet, complete with bilingual Latin and German captions, as well as a bound series of delicately hand-colored manuscript drawings in sanguine demonstrating the continued influence of de Bry’s iconic work well into the eighteenth century.

Transforming the functionality of letters and letterforms into works of visual art, the 1595 volume contains twenty-four engraved plates for each letter of the alphabet. Each is surrounded and otherwise encrusted with a superabundance of ornate nymphs, musical instruments, cherubs, lovers, insects, fruits, birds, trophies, fish, lobsters, and flowers. The text identifies each subject: “A’’ for example, picturing Adam accompanied by Eve and his first wife, Lilith, amid Adam and Eve’s Fall in the Garden of Eden. Both hold an apple snatched from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, as they sit on opposite legs of the letter. Between them, a memento mori rests in the bridge of the A, alluding to their impending mortality, while the Tree grows in the middle. The serpent has snaked its tail around the tree’s trunk, its upper half bearing the tell-tale form of a woman—a standard, gendered, and misogynistic embodiment of temptation itself. The scene around them is one of peaceful amenity. Leaves form a soft canopy above their heads, doves kiss between them, fruit dangles from the outer tips of the letter, in this all-important moment in the transition from immortality to mortality, from innocence to sin.

Just as compelling is JHU’s exquisite manuscript rendition of de Bry’s sixteenth-century alphabet book, is the university’s full suite of pen-and-ink watercolor drawings likely executed by an eighteenth-century French artist and mounted into an album. This virtuoso suite of drawings demonstrates a remarkable sense of scale, as the drawings are significantly reduced from de Bry’s original larger-format engravings. Soft pastels of blue, pink, and gold highlight the figures and outline the borders, manifesting a color palette that ably matches the light and playful mood of de Bry’s idyllic grotesque scenes.

The use of human figures to decorate individual letterforms was not invented by de Bry, of course. This was a commonplace of medieval manuscript illumination. Renaissance students of artistic proportion, such as Albrecht Dürer and Geoffroy Tory, were also drawn to rendering alphabets drawing on geometric harmonies also apparent in the human form. As new types were founded, alphabetic designs proliferated, from embroidery manuals to goldsmiths’ pattern books.