The famous and renowned history of Amadis de Gaule : conteining the heroick deeds of armes, and strange adventures, aswell of Amadis himself, as of Perion his son, and Lisvart of Greece, son to Esplandian emperor of Constantinople, wherein is shewed the wars of the Christians against the Turks...
This is a 1652 London edition of the Amadis de Gaule romance, translated and expanded by Francis Kirkman and printed by J. Bell for English readers of chivalric fiction. The four pictures are woodcut decorative initial letters, each a large capital T built from interlaced vines, leaves, flowers and birds, with the ornament shifting in density from block to block. A designer could draw on their dense, tightly packed botanical borders as a model for ornamental capitals and frames.
