L'Asia
A 1562 Venetian printing of João de Barros's history of Portuguese exploration and conquest in Asia, issued by the press of Vincenzo Valgrisio for a learned readership of merchants and scholars. The single picture is a woodcut historiated initial L, with figures in a landscape of trees, a sea shore and a woman with a child set inside the letter's stem and bowl, showing how a decorative capital can carry narrative scenes for a designer's borders and monograms.
