First published in 1973 under the title Antonio Vivaldi: Table de Concordances des Œuvres (RV), the Ryom-Verzeichnis has existed in several forms over the course of its development.
Mario Rinaldi (1945) described the entire oeuvre, but the catalogue contained numerous errors and had a whimsical numbering.
Ryom first considered to call his classification Vivaldi-Werke-Verzeichnis, abbreviated VWV, analogous to the Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis (BWV).
After consulting a scientific colleague, he decided to link his own name to the catalogue and chose Ryom-Verzeichnis.
In July 2007 Peter Ryom appointed Italian musician Federico Maria Sardelli to continue his work of cataloguing the music of Antonio Vivaldi, and since then the latter has been responsible for the Ryom-Verzeichnis (RV).