With the advent of printing, 1440, and etching to make sturdy images, came the emblem books. Printers needed a market, and the unread populace weren't buying books. So they came up with the obvious solution: picture books, called emblem books. These involved simplistic images at first, but became much more ornate. The most expensive were hand-colored, most were black and white. They are very artistic, with the image attempting to communicate through symbols, much information about the picture.

You can find many beautiful colored emblems at https://www.alchemywebsite.com/amclglr1.html. I'll include a few here. Splendor Solis is probably the most beautiful. 

Slendor Solis.pdf (3.79 mb)