6056B

Decorated Initials

Artist: Workshops of Antonio Ricardo (Lima) and Francisco del Canto (but only as printers?)
Title: Decorated Intials (White Roman initials over flower-bouquet decorations)
Date: 1585-1615
Medium: Woodcut. Measurements? Printed in the following works: Tercero Cathecismo[.] Lima: Antonio Ricardo, 1585 [Letters A (shown here), C (shown here), D (shown here), M, T] — Confessionario para los curas de indios[.] Lima: Antonio Ricardo, 1585 [Letters A, C, D, H (shown here), T (shown here)] — Miguel Agia, Tres pareceres graves en derecho[.] Lima: Antonio Ricardo, 1604 [Letter P] — Relacion de la [j]ornada del Excelentissimo Condestable de Castilla[.] Lima: Francisco del Canto, 1605 [Letter M (shown here)] — Iuan Garreguilla, Libro de plata reduzida[.] Lima: Francisco del Canto, 1607 [Letter P (shown here)] — Bartholome Lobo Guerrero, Constituciones Synodales[.] Lima: Francisco del Canto, 1614 [Letters M, N] — Arte y Vocabulario en la lengua general del Peru[.]: Lima: Francisco del Canto, 1614 [Letter N (shown here)] — Labyrintho de Comercio Terrestre y Naval. Lima: Francisco del Canto, 1617 [Letter N].
Location: Antiguas Imprentas de Antonio Ricardo y Francisco del Canto
Photo Source: Mori 2013a || Mori 2013b and Biblioteca Digital Hispánica. Not reproduced at scale vis-à-vis the images of the impressions in 6056A.
Correspondence Credit: Almerindo Ojeda
Note 1: Line-by-line similarities between the images of 6056A and 6056B suggest that, except for P, all of these letters were printed from one and the same set of types. Said types were printed in Seville by Martín de Montesdoca between 1553 and 1558. In 1559 Montesdoca decided to end his publishing career, and sold some of his typographic wares to Juan Gutiérrez, a fellow printer in Seville. The types in question must have been part of this sale, as Gutiérrez printed them between 1559 and 1570. Antonio Ricardo was an Italian typographer who worked in Venice, Lyon, Valladolid, and Medina del Campo. In 1570, Ricardo left Europe and traveled to Mexico to become one of the first publishers of the New World. It follows that Ricardo could have acquired our types in Seville —the required point of departure for the Indies— and brought them along in his transatlantic journey. Ricardo could then print these types in Lima, where he relocated in 1580, through his death in 1606. Then the types must have passed on to his successor, Francisco del Canto, who printed them, likewise in Lima, through his demise ca. 1620.
Note 2: The P in the source alphabet has been documented in works edited by Francisco Pérez, a publisher active in Seville between 1584 and 1609 (see 6056A). This means that Ricardo did not bring that P with him to America in 1570. Rather, he had to create it anew in the New World (alberit following the style of the other initials of the source alphabet). Hence the exceptionality of P in the preceding note.
Item: 6056B

Correspondences: Archive: 6056A/6056B; Archive: 6056A/6056B; Archive: 6056A/6056B; 6056A/6056B