Gli asolani di Pietro Bembo : con una copiosa tauola nel fine delle materie, e di tutte le cose piu notabili, che in loro si contengono
Gli asolani is a 1558 Italian dialogue on love by Pietro Bembo, printed in Venice by Gabriel Giolito de' Ferrari for a literate reading public. Its pictures are small woodcut historiated initials and printer's devices, showing a decorative S with a face, a grotesque E with a lion, a bird above a shield on a pedestal flanked by satyrs, and a seated figure in an N; a designer might take the compact framed letter forms and grotesque ornament as models for display initials.
