ABSTRACT
Given these beginnings one might have supposed there would have been certain inhibitions about this iconographic innovation. There is nothing to suggest that these prints reached England. But it does seem remarkable, given its antecedents, that the tetragrammaton appeared so conspicuously heading the Coverdale title-page. Perhaps this deserves more attention than it has been given. The tetragrammaton was an iconographic innovation that signalled a new relationship with the divinity of God the Father, a symbol, it might seem, for a redrawing of boundaries between Creator and created.5 And the divine presence on the 1535 title-page was in marked contrast with the traditional imagery of God the Father in the text that followed.6 Was Holbein in some way responsible for the introduction of the tetragrammaton, and what role might
Coverdale have played? Was Thomas Cromwell cognisant of the background to a visual emblem that held such challenging implications? Was Cranmer already keen to move towards implementing a reform which we know he was committed to not long after this?
