Libri tre di m. Lodovico Dolce; ne i qvali si tratta delle diuerse sorti delle gemme, che produce la natura, della qvalità, grandezza, bellezza, & virtù loro
A 1565 Venetian treatise by Lodovico Dolce, printed by the Sessa brothers, describing the kinds, qualities, sizes and virtues of gemstones for a general reading public. The pictures are small woodcut initials, framed letters with figures set in their columns and panels, mostly with a crowd or a single seated figure. A designer could borrow the compact framed-letter format and the dense hatched woodcut texture for decorative capitals.
