The House of the First Print Shop in the Americas (Spanish: Casa de la Primera Imprenta de América) at the corner of Moneda and Licenciado Primo Verdad streets in Mexico City was the home of the first printing press/print shop in the New World.
The house was originally constructed by Gerónimo de Aguilar in 1524 and is located on the outer edge of what was the sacred precinct of the Templo Mayor prior to the Conquest.
After receiving permission from Spanish king Carlos V, Mexico City archbishop, Juan de Zumarraga had a printing press brought from Europe in 1539. The press was set up in this house, then called the “Casa de las Campanas” (House of the Bells) by the Seville-based publisher Juan Cromberger with Italian printer Juan Pablos who worked for living expenses for ten years. They began printing viceregal- and Church-related documents. One of these documents was a catechism entitled “The Brief and Most Concise Christian Doctrine in the Mexican Language” written by the archbishop himself.
After its stint as a print shop, the house changed hands numerous times and used for a number of purposes. In the 17th century, it belonged to the Monastery of Santa Teresa de la Orden de las Carmelas Reformadas and later, in the 18th century it belonged to the Royal Military Order of Nuestra Señora de la Merced Redención de Cautivos de la Ciudad de México. In 1847, U.S. troops occupied the house, destroying the archives that were within. The house was then owned by a number of civilians, including one who used the building to store furniture. In the 20th century, the building was mostly used for offices, including being the home to a paper and printing services operation called the “Imprenta y Papelería Militar "Marte"” The house continued to change hands until 1989, when the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (UAM) bought the house with the intention of restoring it.
UAM worked with the Historic Center Restoration Program, working with the Instituto Nacional de Antropología. About 82 cm below the surface of the ground floor the stone head of a serpent from Aztec times was discovered. It is possible that this head was visible to the occupants of the building in the 16th and 17th centuries.
Today, the house serves as the Continuing Education Center for UAM with various exhibition rooms, a bookstore and facilities for conferences and courses. In 2008, the Book Museum opened here, with some of the oldest books in Mexico on display.
Famous quotes containing the words house, print, shop and/or americas:
“The night in prison was novel and interesting enough.... I found that even here there was a history and a gossip which never circulated beyond the walls of the jail. Probably this is the only house in the town where verses are composed, which are afterward printed in a circular form, but not published. I was shown quite a long list of verses which were composed by some young men who had been detected in an attempt to escape, who avenged themselves by singing them.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The Anglo-American can indeed cut down, and grub up all this waving forest, and make a stump speech, and vote for Buchanan on its ruins, but he cannot converse with the spirit of the tree he fells, he cannot read the poetry and mythology which retire as he advances. He ignorantly erases mythological tablets in order to print his handbills and town-meeting warrants on them.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“While on the shop and street I gazed
My body of a sudden blazed;
And twenty minutes more or less
It seemed, so great my happiness,
That I was blessèd and could bless.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“The only history is a mere question of one’s struggle inside oneself. But that is the joy of it. One need neither discover Americas nor conquer nations, and yet one has as great a work as Columbus or Alexander, to do.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)