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A: Roma, Lazio, Italy

Torquemada's "Mediationes", the Earliest Illustrated Printed Book Published in Italy

12/31/1467
An engraved portrait of Juan de Torquemada from 1791. (Click on the image to view larger.)

An engraved portrait of Juan de Torquemada from 1791. (Click on the image to view larger.)

The first printed book with illustrations issued in Italy was an edition of the Meditationes seu Contemplationes devotissimae of the Spanish Cardinal Juan de Torquemada (Johannes de Turrecremata) issued in Rome by Ulrich Han (Udalricus Gallus) on December 31, 1467. The woodcuts, "though modeled after frescoes in Santa Maria di Minerva in Rome, were the work of a German artisan" (Hirsch, Printing, Selling and Reading 1450-1550 [1967] 120, footnote 25).

ISTC No. it00534800. In February 2015 a digital facsimile was available from the National Library of Spain at this link.

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