Il Decameron di Messer G. Boccacci cittadino fiorentino
A 1573 Florentine printing of Boccaccio's Decameron from the Giunti press, a collection of prose tales for a literate Italian readership. Its four pictures are small woodcut historiated initials, each a large letter framing a horseman or mounted rider in a lively scene with dogs or other animals. A designer could draw on their compact, dense framing, where a single letter contains an entire narrative vignette.
