Banckes, Herball, 1552 (C7r)

This page uses a variety of typographical signals to set off the titles and accounts of the different herbs. From top to bottom you can see a fist, capitulum, fleuron, another fist and capitulum, and an initial letter.

Boethius, Arithmetica, 1492 (2a1v)

The text of this edition begins "Incipiunt duo libri de Arthimetica" but the title of the book is taken not from this phrase, but from the title label on the previous page. The space for the initial letter, like others in this volume, has been left unfilled.

Boethius, Arithmetica, 1492 (2l8r)

On this last leaf of text, the printer has included both a colophon identifying who printed the book and a register of the last words printed on the first four leaves in each gathering of the two-volume set.

Caxton, Aesop, 1484 (fol. 38r)

This version of Aesop’s Fables is the first ever to have been printed in English. Caxton translated from Julien Macho's 1482 French edition and replicated Jehan Rousset's woodcuts from that edition as well.

Prouisiones cedulas, 1563 (a1r)

The title of this collection of Spanish colonial laws is surrounded by four separate woodcuts used as borders, as well as a cut of the Spanish coat of arms.

Prouisiones cedulas, 1563 (m2r)

Two different styles of the initial letter D can be seen here, the first quite plain and the second floriated.

Securis, A newe almanacke, 1571 (A2v-A3r)

Almanacs often included charts of the human body and indications of which astrological signs ruled which parts. This opening also includes information about propitious times of the year for things not only having to do with the body (bathing, stopping colds) but with planting.

Zumárraga, Doctrina breve, 1544 (i4r)

The colophon is printed as a descending triangle as a way of decoratively ending the text, a shape also seen in tailpieces.