Early printed books on religion from colonial Spanish America, 1543/44-c. 1800

In colonial Spanish America, the publishing output was dominated by doctrinal and devotional works, confessionals, hymnals, and saints’ lives. The British Library collection comprises 413 works from this period, the majority of which are from Mexico and Peru. "Mexican Press. The Emperor Charles V readily agreed to the request of the first Bishop of Mexico, Juan de Zumárraga, to set up a printing press, and printers were installed there probably by the mid-1530s. Zumárraga argued that a press would be vital in the important task of converting the indigenous population to Christianity. The earliest surviving Mexican imprint is indeed a doctrinal work: Zumárraga’s own Dotrina breve … de las cosas que pertenecen a la fe catholica (1543/44). It was printed by Giovanni Paoli (in Spanish, Juan Pablos), an Italian from Brescia, who had signed a contract with the Seville printer Juan Cromberger to print on his behalf in Mexico. Press in Peru. The same evangelizing motive prompted the establishment of a press in Peru. The second Peruvian imprint, and the first full-length book, was a trilingual (Spanish, Quechua, Aymara) catechism printed in Lima in 1584. The book – Doctrina christiana, y ca