Opere drammatiche e componimenti poetici
An 1748 Milan edition of Pietro Metastasio's collected opera librettos and poems, published by Giuseppe Cairoli for a readership of theatre and literature followers. The three pictures are printed ornaments: a band of scrolling baroque filigree, a grid of small rosettes and flourishes, and a central shield flanked by urns and foliage above a red-printed imprint line. A designer could draw on the dense, symmetrical rhythm of these 18th-century typographic borders and cartouches.
