De literatorum hominum inuidia
A 1675 Latin treatise by Benedetto Menzini, printed in Florence by Bonardi for a scholarly readership, opening with a decorative woodcut initial. The picture is a square block capital E framed by a border of leaves and flowers, the kind of ornament early printers used to open a chapter. A designer could take from it the idea of a boxed letter whose interlace of stems and blossoms fills the square around a heavy, simple letterform.
