Martha Barton Robertson, Curator
July 1991
This exhibit was organized to coincide with the meeting of the 47th International Congress of Americanists, held in New Orleans.
Pre-Columbian "books" had no influence on printed books in Mexico after the Conquest of 1519-1521. In the early colonial period the native manuscript art was useful to the Spanish for a while and aided exploration, government, and conversion of the Indians to Christianity. But by 1600 Indian painting (writing) was very much acculturated and almost completely eclipsed by the widespread use of alphabetic script. Only a few survivals appear in later centuries, primarily in rural areas, and in folk art.
Actually the Aztecs had invented the elements of printing in the European sense, for they had native paper ( amatl, maguey, etc.), paint (ink), and stamps (type) which they used for stamping pottery and cloth, but they never developed movable type. It was not until the first Bishop of Mexico, Fray Juan de Zumárraga, brought a printer from Europe that we have "printed" books produced in the New World. Arriving in Mexico in 1528 Zumárraga immediately saw the need for libraries and a printing press to aid in converting the Indians.
The first printer in America was an Italian from Brescia, Juan Pablos, who came in 1539 from the printing house of Juan Cromberger of Seville. Cromberger had gone tot Spain from Germany where Johann Gutenberg had invented printing in 1449-1450. Pablos brought with him a press, gothic types, paper, and materials for ink-making. In 1550 he sent for Antonio de Espinosa, a type founder and die cutter, who became his most notable successor in the printing business in Mexico (active 1559-1575). In 1554 Antonio de Espinosa cut and used the first roman and italic types which by the end of the century replaced Juan Pablos' old gothic forms. Pablos himself continued to print until 1560.
Pedro Ocharte, a French merchant from Rouen, came to Mexico in 1548 and married the daughter of Juan Pablos. In 1563 he took over Juan Pablos' press at the request of Pablos' widow and was active until 1592. We know more about Pedro Ocharte, because in 1571 he published a large print of the "Virgin of the Rosary" with a quatrain considered heretical by the Inquisition and was imprisoned; inventories of his confiscated "properties" reveal much about the tools of Mexican printers of the time.
Pedro's son, Melchior Ocharte, later worked at the Franciscan Convento of Santiago Tlatilulco and was active 1599-1601. He was the only early Mexican printer to work outside of Mexico City. Pedro Balli, another printer of handsome books, worked in Mexico from 1574 to 1600.
By 1600 nine presses were functioning in Mexico City. The works of these early printers--grammars, dictionaries, books of devotion, law and seamanship--are the incunabula of the New World and are very scarce. Throughout the 16th century they were printed on paper used for Spanish books of the period.
Ornamentation and illustration began in Mexico with the first production of its presses. Title pages were often in red and black in imitation of distinguished European models. Occasionally double title pages gave greater enrichment. Standard woodcuts such as devices, shields, Franciscan emblems, and devotional symbols were imported from Europe and used over and over again. Some were designed and cut in Mexico itself by or for printers like Antonio de Espinosa and Pedro Ocharte.
The discovery of the New World was fascinating to Europeans. Hernán Cortés sent five letters to the Emperor Charles V, and his officer Bernal Díaz del Castillo and others wrote important accounts. In England, France, Germany, the Low Countries, Italy, Switzerland, and Spain, and many other countries, books about the Americas were printed and were popular everywhere. Tulane University has a very impressive collection of these works, and a few of the University's holdings are exhibited here for members of the 47th International Congress of Americanists to see and enjoy.
