Dioscoride Anazarbeo della materia medicinale
A 1547 Italian edition of Dioscorides' materia medica, printed in Florence by Bernardo di Giunti for medical readers and scholars. The four pictures are the same woodcut decorated initial I, showing a crowned figure on a chariot with a wheel at left and two birds or peacocks on clouds at right, repeated in different cuts and sizes. A designer might take from them the framed capital letter as a decorative device, with its contrast of a dense hatched background against a solid white letterform.
