Relationi della venvta degli ambasciatori giaponesi a Roma sino alla partita di Lisbona : con le accoglienze fatte loro da tutti i principi christiani per doue sono passati
This is a 1586 Italian account printed in Rome by Francesco Zannetti, recounting the visit of the Japanese Tensho embassy of young Christian envoys to Pope Gregory XIII and the Catholic princes of Europe, written for a Roman and wider European readership. The four pictures are small woodcut decorative initials, each a single large capital letter framed by scrolling acanthus leaves, flowers and foliage in a dense, bold black-and-white cut style that a designer could adapt for ornamental letterforms, drop caps or border motifs.
