La Portia : comedia
La Portia is a comedy in Italian, attributed to Giuseppe Leggiadro Galanni and printed around 1550, probably in Florence, for a reading or theatre audience. Its two pictures are decorative woodcut initials: a large letter M framed in a square border with flowering vine tendrils, and a letter F with leafy acanthus-style foliage and a fan of ribbon-like strokes, each set in a rectangular frame. A designer could draw on these as models for Renaissance-style monograms, drop caps and framed ornamental lettering.
