Antonio Ricardo

Antonio Ricciardi, better known as Antonio Ricardo (1532 – 1605/1606), was an Italian from Turin who became the first printer in South America and worked in Lima, Peru from 1584 until his death in 1605 or 1606.

Biography Antonio Ricciardi was born in Turin in 1532. His father Sebastiano Ricciardi came from Monticello d'Alba, and his mother Gigliani Pallodi was a native of Turin. He had a brother Pietro who lived in Venice. Ricciardi worked with the printer Gerolamo Farina in Turin. Afterwards he went to Venice and Lyon, where he met Pedro Ocharte, one of the earliest printers in Mexico. Together they traveled to Valladolid and Medina del Campo, where they worked with the printers Del Canto.

Ricardo emigrated to Mexico in presumably May 1570, where he worked in the shop of Pedro Ocharte. He also married Catalina Aguda in those years. He was a printer in Mexico City from 1577 to 1579, with his office in the San Pedro y San Pablo College of the Jesuits. In those three years, he printed at least twelve works, published in ten books. Ricardo received the order, thereby becoming the first printer in South America, and he remained the only one until his death. He was granted official permission to set up a printing press in Lima from Philip II of Spain on 7 August 1584. The first publication ever printed in South America was a four-page leaflet with information about the new Gregorian calendar of 1582, which was immediately adopted by Spain, but which hadn't yet been communicated to the colonies. The next publication by Ricardo, and the first book ever printed in South America, was the . Between 1584 and 1605, Ricardo would publish at least 40 works.

In 1605, Ricardo was summoned to appear before the Inquisition. The same year or the next year, he died. His office was taken over by Francisco del Canto, a son of the Del Cantos from Medina del Campo, who had worked in Ricardo's workshop previously and who would hold the monopoly on printing in Peru until 1619.

Works published

In Mexico 1577: Emblemata by Andreas Alciatus 1577: Tristes by Ovid 1577: , together with by Juan de la Anunciacion 1577: , by Juan de Medina Plaza 1578: , by Juan de Córdova 1578: , by Francisco de Toledo: published together with and , by Francesco Maurolico 1578: , by , the first text on surgery printed in the Americas 1579: , by Manuel Álvares 1579: , by Agustín Farfán 1579: , by Pedro de Morales

In Peru 1584: , a four-page edict on the new Gregorian calendar, probably the first work printed in South America 1584: , the first book printed in South America, and the first printed book with text in Quechua and Aymara 1585: 1585: 1585: by José de Acosta 1586: (reprinted 1603, 1604 and 1614) 1586: by Alonso de Barzana 1596: by Pedro de Oña, first impression of the best known work of Chile's first poet 1597: , by Joan de Belveder 1598: , by Geronimo de Ore 1601: 1602: by 1602: 1603: , by 1604: , by 1606: by