Mexico City · 1539

The first printing press in the Americas

The first printing press in the Americas was set up in Mexico City in 1539, almost half a century before the one in Lima (1584). It was promoted by Bishop Fray Juan de Zumárraga and Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza, who needed books to evangelize and govern.

The Seville printer Juan Cromberger signed a contract with Juan Pablos, a typesetter from Brescia, to come to New Spain with a press, type and materials. The workshop opened in the Casa de las Campanas, on the corner of today's Moneda and Licenciado Verdad streets.

That workshop produced Christian doctrines, vocabularies and books in Indigenous languages. Viceroy Mendoza granted Cromberger the exclusive privilege of printing in Mexico.

The MUNAG preserves the wooden press known as the Juan Pablos press, the signature piece of its collection.