6665B

Decorated Initial D

Artist: Workshop of Antonio Ricardo (ca. 1540 – 1605/1606) (but only as printer)
Title: Decorated Initial D
Date: 1602-1603
Medium: Wooblock impression. Published in Constituciones y Ordenanças de la Universidad […] de la Ciudad de los Reyes. Lima: Antonio Ricardo, 1602 — Sobre que no se carguen los Indios deste Reyno. Auto de Oficio. Lima, Antonio Ricardo, 1603 — V.S. Declara y manda que en los casicasgos de Pachaca y Ayllos no ha de auer subcession[.] Auto de Oficio. Lima: Antonio Ricardo, 1603 (from which this D is taken) — and other Autos de Oficio of 1603
Location: Antigua Imprenta de Antonio Ricardo, Lima, Perú.
Photo Source: Mori 2013a
Correspondence Credit: Almerindo Ojeda
Note: Antonio Ricardo was an Italian typographer who worked in Venice, Lyon, Valladolid, and Medina del Campo. In 1570, Ricardo left Europe and traveled to America to become one of the first publishers of the New World. It follows that Ricardo could have acquired this woodblock from (the successors of) Juan Varela de Salamanca in Seville —the required point of departure for the Indies— and brought it along in his transatlantic journey. Ricardo could have then printed this woodblock in Lima, where he relocated in 1580.
Item: 6665B