Relation historique et geographique, de la grande riuiere des Amazones dans l'Amerique
A 1656 French account of the Amazon River by Blaise François de Pagan, comte de Merveilles, printed in Paris by Cardin Besongne for a general readership interested in South American exploration. The pictures are a woodcut decorated initial letter with foliate scrollwork, a copperplate map of Peru and the Pacific coast with dense place labels and compass lettering, and a engraved armorial bookplate with a crest, shield, and motto ribbon. A designer could draw on the contrast between the crude woodcut ornament and the fine engraved cartography, and on the restrained heraldic framing.
