Epistolae medicinales in quibus multa recentiorum errata, & antiquorum decreta referantur
A 1528 Latin medical letter collection by Giovanni Manardi, printed in Paris (Lutetia) by Christian Wechel for physicians and scholars. Its pages open with large historiated initials of a putto or cherub wrestling with and climbing the letter, set against foliage and scrollwork, beside dense black-letter-style roman text in columns. A designer could take the playful figure-filled capitals as a model for decorative drop caps and sixteenth-century woodcut ornament.
