Mondi celesti, terrestri et infernali, de gli Academici Pellegrini
A 1562 Italian book printed in Venice by Gabriel Giolito de' Ferrari, written by Anton Francesco Doni, a sixteenth-century Florentine writer, and aimed at a general literate readership. The four pictures are decorative woodcut initials with framed letters (N, D, L, P) filled with figures, faces, foliage and scrollwork, showing how Renaissance printers ornamented the opening letter of a text. A designer could take from them the interlace borders, grotesque masks and putti that frame each letter in a compact, strongly outlined form.
