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The Collation

Opening Ornamental Initials

During the last couple of months at the Folger, we have come across a number of exceptional ornamental initials in Flemish imprints, as we are processing these systematically together with two interns. 1 These initials can be fascinating to study. For example, look at the beginning of the first book of Lodovico Melzo’s Regole militari […] sopra il governo e servitio della cavalleria, published in Antwerp by Joachim Trognesius in 1611: 2 (Click on any image in this post to enlarge it.)

Beginning of Melzo’s military treaty on the cavalry (sig. A1r)

Beginning of Melzo’s military treaty on the cavalry (sig. A1r)

  1. Bettie Payne and Amanda Daxon were trained to make physical descriptions of these imprints in October 2012 and they have been making collations of, up to now, about 500 items. My sincere thanks to both of them, for both their invaluable help and joy in carrying out this project together with me.
  2. See the Short Title Catalogue Flanders, henceforth: STCV 6626406.
  3. See STCV 6607570.
  4. See STCV 12916845. Jean Peeters-Fontainas dates this work as 1612: ‘La date gravée 161z [sic] a été lue 1612, 1613 et même 1617. Or la B.N. [= Biblioteca Nacional] de Madrid possède deux exemplaires; le premier (R 3006) porte la date 161z; pour le second (R 4828), le cuivre du frontispice a été retravaillé à la date, dont on a fait 1612. On peut donc en conclure que 161z doit se lire 1612.’ See: J. Peeters-Fontainas, Bibliographie des impressions espagnoles des Pays-Bas méridionaux. Nieuwkoop 1965, 2 vols, vol. 2, no. 1328, pp. 681-682. The ‘Carta del avthor’ for the duke of Bucquoy (1571–1621; see fol. a3r-v) is dated 10 May 1611, his dedication to Don Luis de Velasco (1559–1625; fol. a4v-b1v) is dated 4 October 1611. Don Luis Velasco’s answer (fol. b2r-v) bears the date 30 January 1612. The ‘copia del privilegio’ (fol. a4r) refers to 10 September 1611. The Folger copy clearly has 1613 on the title page.
  5. The engraving mentions the date 1597, but it is not clear to which event it refers.
  6. See STCV 6599912.
  7. The Folger has also a copy of that work; see STCV 6848945.
  8. See Margareth M. Smith, The title-page. Its early development 1460–1510. London/New Castle 2000.
  9. In the first decades of book production, printers like Johann Fust and Peter Schöffer in Mainz experimented with printed, ornamental initials in two colours. See e.g., ISTC ip01036000 (1457) or ISTC id00403000 (1459). With thanks to Daniel DeSimone, Curator of the Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection at Library of Congress, who delivered this information in a lecture entitled “Printing in Color: A Lesson in Technique,” Library of Congress, 7 March 2013.

Comments

I love this series of images Goran Proot put together of ornamental initials in one text from 1505 to 1821. http://t.co/z7ETaKtmjv

@wynkenhimself — March 19, 2013

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Ornamental initials in early printed texts. Illustrations of 300 years of changes – http://t.co/D1llhPWsl7 via @FolgerResearch

@rdelrossi — April 9, 2013

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