La pitarchie françoise, ov response avx vaines plainctes des mal contens
A 1615 French pamphlet printed in Paris by Gilbert le Veau, written by Jean Sirmond as a political reply to discontented critics of Henri II de Bourbon, prince de Condé. The two pictures are small typographic ornaments: a decorative initial letter with dense scrolling foliage, and a symmetrical woodcut device of stylised flowers, a central face and hanging tassels. A designer might take from them the crisp, heavy line of early seventeenth-century French woodcut ornament, usable for initials, headpieces and symmetrical borders.
