Arte en lengua zapoteca,
A 1578 Spanish-language grammar of the Zapotec language of Mexico, written by the Dominican friar Juan de Córdoba and printed in Mexico City by Pedro Balli for missionaries working among Indigenous peoples. The four pictures are decorative woodcut initials: a large ornate D with foliage, a small historiated A with leafy scrolls, a Q enclosing a stylised bird or dragon among acanthus leaves, and a P with interlaced foliage. A designer could draw on their dense, framed, black-and-white letterform borders for historical display type and page ornament.







