6667B

Decorated Initial N

Artist: Workshop of Antonio Ricardo (ca. 1540 – 1605/1606) (but only as printer).
Title: Decorated Initial N
Date: 1585
Medium: Woodblock impression. Published in Tercero Cathecismo[.] Lima: Antonio Ricardo, 1585.
Location: Antigua Imprenta de Antonio Ricardo, Lima, Perú.
Photo Source: John Carter Brown Library (BA584 C361d) / Internet Archive
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 de León 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: 6667B