Tullia feroce; tragedia
A 1591 tragedy by Pietro Cresci, printed in Venice by Giovanni Battista Sommasco, held by the Getty Research Institute and written for a literate Italian reading public. Its pictures are small woodcut ornaments: a grotesque mask framed by curling scrollwork, a second face with a knotted beard and fleshy features, a decorated initial letter with foliage and animal heads, and a centaur drawing a bow beneath a black letter F. A designer could draw on the dense, hatched linework and the mix of foliage, masks and monsters used to frame text in Renaissance printing.
