De morbis communibus liber. Ejusdem tractatus de variolis, et appendix ad librum de morbis communibus in quo agitur de causa praesentis tempestatis ...
A 1596 medical treatise by Diomede Amico, printed in Venice by Francesco de Franciscis, on common diseases and smallpox, held by the Wellcome Library. The pictures are small woodcut decorative initials, a large C enclosing a vase-like urn with scrolling acanthus foliage, and a historiated initial V with a figure's head in a framed letter at the start of a paragraph, set among dense black-letter Latin text. A designer could take from them the compact interplay of ornamental scrollwork and a figure or object contained within a capital letter.
