
Prima parte de' fiori, page 15 (recto)
Giovanni Battista Ciotti
An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art
Written by Giovanni Battista Ciotti, printed by Nicolo Moretti, Venice, published by Francesco de' Franceschi, Italian, active 16th century. From top to bottom, and left to right: Woodcut of illustrated printer's mark followed underneath by colophon printed in black. Printer's mark is in the shape of an oval surrounded by an architectural frame; in the center of the oval is an illustration of a nude female figure out at sea (Venus?) holding a cloth with "NON BIS" inscribed above her head.
Drawings and Prints
An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.