Mysliveček - Il Bellerofonte - title page of the libretto, Siena 1767
The pattern
This still is filed under Exhibit in the column.
Define
An image is dropped into the column of type so the reader meets picture and argument in one scan.
Mechanism
In-flow exhibit. The figure is not a separate see fig. 2. It starts the paragraph. Eye and mind start together.
Verdict
Long copy must show as well as tell: a product cutaway, a before/after, a map in the story.
Why it works
Type size here is a ranking system, not a design choice: the title and the two royal names get the same weight, which tells the buyer the performance and the visitors are one event. The sloped informal script in the middle carries the circumstantial detail - theatre, season, occasion - so the eye can skim past it to the next big line, a two-speed read that poster designers would formalise a century later. Engraving the whole page rather than setting it lets the lettering fill the cartouche edge to edge, defeating the ragged column a metal-type title page would give. The allegorical frame and the MELIORA LATENT motto do the flattery silently so the words never have to grovel.
Steal this when
Use this when a launch is really borrowing status from a person or occasion attending it - a gala, a keynote, a named patron. Give the borrowed name the same visual weight as your own title, and drop the logistics into a smaller, visually different second speed.