Giovanni Ludovico Vivaldi (died 1540), Opus regale in quo continentur infrascripta opuscula (Regal Work in which are Contained the Following Small Works) … ([Paris]: Venu[n]da[n]tur Parisius i[n] vico Sancti Iacobi sub i[n]tersignio diui Claudij, [1511]). Inscription at foot of title: P[ro] Conventu S.S. Minorum Franciscanorum Pultariensiu[m] (The Franciscans of Pouthières, France). Graphic Arts copy is from the printing collection of Elmer Adler. Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) 2004-3499N
Paris 1511, metalcut
Vivaldi, a Domincan monk and professor of theology, wrote these regal works in 1507 and they were first printed at Saluzzo by Giacomo de’ Circhi and Sisto Somasco. The following year, Étienne Gueynard (1460-1530) published a new edition in Lyon. Both are described as illustrated with large woodcuts.
In 1511, a grand third edition (held in the graphic arts collection) was printed by Jean Barbier for the Parisian publisher François Regnault. Rather than woodcuts, the book is decorated with composite metalcuts, up to a dozen small metal plates combined to form each large subject and frame.
Lyon 1512, woodcutJust one year later, back in Lyon, a fourth edition (also at Princeton) was prepared by Gueynard, once again illustrated with woodcuts. The designs have been attributed to Guillaume Le Roy the younger (1494-1529), son of the printer by the same name who ran the first press in Lyon.
Paris 1511, metal cuts
Lyon 1512, woodcuts
