4591B

Speciosvs Forma P[r]ae Filiis Hominvm (Psalms 45:2)

Artist: Workshops of Pedro Ocharte and Antonio Ricardo
Title: Speciosvs Forma P[r]ae Filiis Hominvm (Psalms 45:2)
Date: 1578
Medium: Woodcut (The ¿facsimile? illustration of this woodcut in Stolz 1990, Lám. 24, measures 75mm x 75mm). Title page illustration to Fray Alonso de Molina O.F.M. Doctrina Christiana en Lengua Mexicana[.] En Mexico, en casa de Pedro Ocharte, MDLXXVIII. As noticed by Medina (1904-1907, I, xxiii), this woodblock was reprinted as an illustration to folio 73v of Doctrina Christiana y Catecismo […] Compuesto por auctoridad del Concilio Prouincial, que se celebro en la Ciudad de los Reyes el año de 1583[.] Impresso en la Ciudad de los Reyes por Antonio Ricardo, primero impressor en estos Reynos del Piru. Año de MDLXXXIIII (the latter is shown above). In addition to the shared spelling mistake (see Note 1 below), evidence that both Ocharte and Ricardo used the same woodblock comes from the fact that the Ocharte and Ricardo impressions reveal similar defects in the woodblock(s) they used. See for example the loss under the S of SPECIOSVS, the losses in the outer frame, and the smudges in the inner frame. But see Estabridis 2002, 97.
Location: Antigua Imprenta de Pedro Ocharte, Ciudad de México, México. Antigua Imprenta de Antonio Ricardo, Lima, Perú.
Photo Source: Biblioteca, Museo Bartolomé Mitre, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Correspondence Credit: Grañén Porrúa 1994, 106-107.
Note 1: Both the Espinoza woodcut and the Ocharte-Ricardo woodcut lack the R in PRÆ. Said R has been added, however, to some of the Lima reprints in order to correct the spelling mistake. Thus, in the impression of the John Carter Brown Library —which we have not been able to examine directly— this R indeed seems to have been drawn in, as Emily Floyd originally suggested to us. But in the impression at the Biblioteca Nacional del Perú, which we did examine directly, and in the impression at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, the R seems to have been relief-printed on the impression, possibly with a metal type. I am led to this because (a) the shape of this R differs from that of the one printed elsewhere in the woodcut (i.e. the R in FORMA), (b) it is misaligned vis-à-vis the other letters of the word, and (c) there are no signs of embedding a new R woodblock within the original woodblock. Yet, in the impression at the Biblioteca Bartolomé Mitre, shown here, the woodcut remains uncorrected.
Note 2: Ricardo arrived in Mexico City in 1570. In 1577 he formed an association with Pedro Ocharte. The society functioned under the aegis of the Jesuits at the Colegio de San Pedro y San Pablo, but this association was dissolved by 1580, when he traveled to Lima with typographical material he used with Ocharte. Between 1570 and 1579, he participated in the production of ten works in Mexico. According to Stolz 1990, 22, "Aunque en la portada [de la Doctrina mexicana en lengua mexicana de fray Alonso de Molina O.F.M.] leemos: 'En casa de Pedro Ocharte', los tipos romanos que se usaron en este libro y el estilo tipográfico mo son de Ocharte, sino de Antonio Ricardo y, personalmente, no dudamos que esta Doctrina sea obra de Ricardo [i.e. publicada por Ricardo]."
Item: 4591B

Correspondences: Archive: 4091A/4591B; Archive: 4091A/4591B; Archive: 4091A/4591B