The fleuron used for section demarcation throughout FLOREAT LUX (shown here, much enlarged) is a segment from the arabesque border on the first page of the First Edition of Milton’s Paradise Lost, printed in 1667 by Samuel Simmons.
According to David Masson’s foreword to an 1877 facsimile reproduction of the First Edition, Simmons produced “a very carefully printed book. It may rank, I think, as the best-looking book of Milton’s printed in his life-time.”
Given the role of Paradise Lost in the novel, it seemed appropriate to acknowledge the poem in this manner. A typographical note with more detail has been appended to the First Edition of FLOREAT LUX.
FLOREAT LUX