La croce racquistata : poema heroico
A 1611 Venetian heroic poem by Francesco Bracciolini, printed by the Giunti and Ciotti firm for a literary readership. Its pictures are small square woodcut initials, each a letter inside a dense frame of scrolling foliage and curling acanthus, with a few showing fleur-de-lis and ribbon-like bands. A designer could take from them the logic of symmetrical corner ornaments built around a central letter panel.
