Delle vite de' più eccellenti pittori, scultori, et architetti
Giorgio Vasari's lives of Italian painters, sculptors and architects, reprinted in Bologna in 1648 by the heirs of Evangelista Dozza for readers and collectors of art history. The plates here are the book's woodcut initial letters: capitals set against foliage, scrolling vines, rosettes and open flowers, some boxed in a ruled border, others left free on the page, with hatched shading and visible ink spread that suits reuse as drop caps, monograms or ornament stamps.
