6065B
Decorated Initials
Decorated Initials
- Artist
- Workshops of Juan Pablos, Pedro Ocharte, and Pedro Balli.
- Title
- Decorated Initials
- Date
- 1554-1595
- Medium
- Woodcut. M is 8mm x 8mm and C, D, F, G, H, I, L, P, Q, S, T, V, Y are between 18mm x 18mm and 20mm x 20mm (cf. Grañén Porrúa 2010, 166-169, where A, E are undescribed). Documented in the following works: Alonso de Veracruz, Recognitio Summularum[.] Ciudad de México: Juan Pablos, 1554 [Letters C, D, T (all three shown here)] — Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana. Ciudad de México: Juan Pablos, 1555 [Letters F, G, H, L, M, Q, S, V, Y (all but M shown here)] — Constituciones del Arzobispado de […] Tenuchtitla[n] Mexico[.] Ciudad de México: Juan Pablos, 1561 [Letters A, I, M, P (all four shown here)] — Benito Fernández, Doctrina christiana en lengua mixteca. Ciudad de México: Pedro Ocharte, 1567 [Letters C, H, S] — Juan de la Cruz, Doctrina cristiana en lengua guasteca. Ciudad de México: Pedro Ocharte, 1571 [Letters D, I] — San Buenaventura, Mistica Theologia[.] Ciudad de México: Pedro Balli, 1575 [Letter A] — Antonio del Rincón, Arte Mexicana. Ciudad de México: Pedro Balli, 1595 [Letters D, E (shown here), Y].
- Location
- Antiguas Imprentas de Juan Pablos, Pedro Ocharte, and Pedro Balli.
- Photo Source
- John Carter Brown Library / HathiTrust Digital Library; Universidad Complutense de Madrid; Universidad Autónoma Benito Juárez de Oaxaca / primeroslibros.org; John Carter Brown Library / Internet Archive. Not reproduced at scale vis-à-vis the images of the impressions in 6065A.
- Correspondence Credit
- Buckingham-Rodríguez 1989 links A, E to letters found in Garibay y Çamalloa's Compendio Historial (Antwerp: Christophe Plantin, 1571), and P to a letter found in Pedro Apiano's Libro de la Cosmografia (Antwerp: Gregorio Bantio, 1548). So only the latter was early enough to serve as a source for all the publications, from 1554 on, by Pablos, Ocharte, and Balli. Similarly, Yhmoff 1981-1982, 140-142 had observed that E, F, G, H, L, M, T, V were printed in Flemish publications between 1547 and 1567. Of these, however, only E, G, L, V appeared prior to 1554. And Garone Gravier 2009, 331 notes that the entire set dislpayed above corresponds to a Plantin series of initials. But this series was not published by Plantin before 1571 in the Compendio Historial (cf. Harvard 1974, Series 49). Here we trace all these letters —except S, Y — to letters appearing in works edited or published by Richard Grafton and Edward Whitechurch between 1537 and 1552, thus predating all the publications by Pablos, Ocharte, and Balli mentioned above. This would be so even if these letters came from woodcuts or woodblocks imported from Flanders. Evidence that Flanders supplied typographic materials to England comes from Matthew's Bible, a bible in the English vernacular published in Antwerp 1537 and then sold in London (see 6065A/6065B). Evidence that England provided printed models to Mexico is the fact that Juan Pablos reproduced the title page of the Whitechurch Book of Common Prayer mentioned above (see 2253A/2253B). Although some of the Whitechurch and Grafton publications appeared between 1549 and 1552 —and hence after Pablos moved to Mexico— it is possible that Juan López Violero, an agent for Pablos, acquired copies of the Flemish/English woodblocks (or impressions thereof) during his sejourn in Seville between September 1550 and April 1551 (cf. Rodríguez-Buckingham 1985, 46-47; Rodríguez Domínguez 2022, 136-137).
- Item
- 6065B
