Creator

Medium Artwork: Woodcut

City Valencia | Region Valencia | Old kingdom Aragon

ARTWORK
This woodcut of a courtier playing the vihuela is used 12 times in Luis Milán’s tiny book (approx. 110x80mm.) Libro de motes de damas y caualleros: intitulado el juego de mandar. Valencia : Francisco Díaz Romano, 1535. It appears on the following folios (with the image number from the Biblioteca Digital Hispánica online version shown in parentheses): Bvi (38), Cv (52), [Dvi] (70), Ev (84), Fv (100), Gvi (118), [Hvi] (134), Iv (148), Kv (164), [Lvi] (182), Mviii (202), [Nviii] (218). The image shown here is from fol. Cv. -- This suggests that the printer had one copy of the woodblock and that he used it once in each fascicle of the book. The same design was used for a different woodblock in Luys de Castillo, Canción hecha por luys de castillo con su glosa. (Medina del Campo, 1535). One was copied from the other, or both were copied from a common model. C.f. several versions of the same print: 16-217, 16-241, 17-130,

INSTRUMENT
A regular vihuela with incurved sides, and some evidence of a taracea immediately above the soundhole. Not much detail is discernible given the small size of the print. There seem to be five strings between the bridge and the players arm, then four strings along the neck. The playing position is also quite approximate with the right arm very low beneath the body of the vihuela.

O’Dette, Paul. “A Spanish Love Affair”. Gramophone Early Music 2 (Autumn, 1999): 62-68.

Milán, Luis. Libro de motes de Damas y Caballeros. Valencia: Francisco Díaz Romano, 1535. Facs rpt Colección Biblioteca Valenciana, Valencia: Servicio de Reproducción de Libros, 1982.

Milán, Luis. Libro de motes de damas y caualleros: intitulado el juego de mandar. Valencia : Francisco Díaz Romano, 1535.