Compendium elegantiarum Laurentii Vallae
Compendium elegantiarum by Lorenzo Valla, a Latin grammar of elegant usage printed in Milan by Filippo da Lavagna for scholars and students of Latin. The first picture shows a hand-painted blue initial D enclosing a pale face with a dark nose, beside the printed word OMINA, and the second is a Boston Public Library bookplate reading The Francis Skinner Fund inside a garland-framed border. A designer could take from them the contrast of hand-coloured initial letters against black type and the restrained classical frame ornament of an early printed book.
