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This is part of a continuing series of posts on Blank, Empty and Missing Things.

Paolo Giovio’s (also known as Paulo Jovio, 1483–1552) Elogia vivorum bellica 
virtute illustrium (or "Praise of Men Illustrious for Courage in War") published 
in 1554 and Elogia virorum literis illustrium (1577) are two of the most 
beautiful woodcut productions of the later 16th century. They were illustrated 
galleries, a sort of supra-advanced Renaissance LIFE magazine of famous 
people in the arts and military. They were, in general, the first time the portraits
of the vast majority of these 180+ people had been seen in a printed forma, 
the mysteries (if any) of their appearance revealed to the public. The work was 
more than thirty years in the making, with the woodcuts (after the paintings by 
Giovio) being worked by Christopher van Sichem, Bernhard Jobin and the great 
Tobias Stimmer. The portraits included authors, poets and various other 
humanists, as well as military people and their support, plus natural scientists 
and medical people. 

I like these images because of their determined simplicity—at least the portraits 
themselves were simple (done with a real respect for open, blank space), though 
the borders were anything but. This portrait by Stimmer,for 
example, shows very wide spaces of white, un-tapped pieces of the woodblock, 
leaving them open for interpretation.