L' isole piv̀ famose del mondo
L'isole piu famose del mondo is a 1576 Venetian atlas of islands by Thomaso Porcacchi, with copperplate maps engraved by Girolamo Porro for scholarly and armchair readers of the Renaissance. Its island maps show coastlines in dense hatching, with towns, mountains, ships and sea monsters placed around the coast, and a designer could take from them the decorative cartouches, compass roses and engraved sea-creature borders. Woodcut decorated initials with grotesque scrollwork and small figures also appear, useful for historical ornament.
