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‘Mujeres impresoras’: Four generations of women printers in Mexico
By Henry Handley
With 80 years of international collecting, the Marian Library contains extensive resources on Mary, the mother of Jesus, published in Mexico — nearly 1,400 books and pamphlets in the collections, including rare books. The earliest, a sermon on the Immaculate Conception published in 1627, was printed by Ana de Herrera, the widow of Diego Garrido. Women printers weren’t uncommon in Mexico; printing and bookselling were often a combined family business, and women could inherit that business. Women are most visible as the widows (viudas in Spanish) of male printers, and their own names may be unknown. But one family in Mexico has been described as a printing dynasty, and women played an important role in establishing and maintaining that dynasty over the 17th and 18th centuries.
The Marian Library holds books printed by women in the Calderón family across four generations, illustrating how books and pamphlets about Mary were connected to the secular and ecclesiastical control over printing in New Spain.
Paula de Benavides, widow of Bernardo Calderón
Luis Gomez de Solis, Sermon de la pvrificacion de Maria SSma. esplendor de su siempre limpia, y libada virginidad en sugetarse à esta ley de purificacion.
Mexico: Viuda de B. Calderon, 1677
ML-RB Gomez 1677, Marian Library Rare Books
Paula de Benavides successfully retained her husband Bernardo’s privileges to print catechetical works in Mexico and expanded on them through negotiations with both secular and ecclesiastical powers in New Spain, including the Inquisition. This is clear from the title page, which emphasizes the protection of Father Antonio Leal de Araujo in the role of Inquisition qualificador, or censor, but especially visible with his coat of arms printed in the book.
María de Benavides, widow of Juan de Ribera
Francisco de Florencia, La estrella de el norte de Mexico [...] en la historia de la milagrosa imagen de N. Señora de Guadalupe de Mexico, que se apareciò en la manta de Juan Diego. Mexico: Por doña Maria de Benavides, viuda de Juan de Ribera, 1688
ML-RB Florencia 1688, Marian Library Rare Books
Paula de Benavides’ daughter María married Juan de Ribera, a printer and bookseller himself. María inherited her husband’s business and her mother’s; she worked with her son Miguel to manage them, using “María de Benavides, viuda de Juan de Ribera” in the imprint of books like this history of the apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe and devotion to her. Miguel handled billing for this book — 1,000 copies commissioned by the Santuario de Nuestra Señora Guadalupe, coming to 1,917 pesos and 2 reales, according to Kenneth C. Ward’s analysis of records in the Mexican national archives inArchivo General de la Nación, Mexico City.
Gertrudis Escobar de Ribera, widow of Miguel de Ribera Calderón
Manuel de Arguello. Accion de gracias, a la soberana Reyna del cielo, Maria SS. de Guadalupe en Su magnifico templo, con que solemnizò el real acuerdo de esta corte, en virtùd de real orden, las victorias, [...] en Viruega, y Villaviciosa los dias 8. y 11 de diziembre del año de 1710. Mexico: Viuda de M. de Ribera, 1711
ML-RB Arguello 1711, Marian Library Rare Books
After María de Benavides’ death, her sons Miguel and Francisco split the printing business. Miguel’s widow, Gertrudis, continued printing for seven years following his death and printed this sermon giving thanks to Our Lady of Guadalupe for Spain’s victories in the War of Spanish Succession in 1710.
María Candelaria de Rivera Calderón y Benavides
Miguel Picazo. Imagen humana, y divina de la puríssima concepción. Mexico: Impr. real del Superior gobierno, y del nuevo rezado de Doña Maria de Rivera, 1738.
ML-RB Picazo, Marian Library Rare Books
When Gertrudis died, the Ribera press passed to several heirs, including her niece María Candelaria. The heirs printed the first issues of the first newspaper in Mexico, the Gaceta, in 1722. Maria Candelaria de Rivera later became sole heir and printed under her own name. As the imprint indicates, she printed official state documents in addition to works like this sermon on the Immaculate Conception.
Bibliography
Ward, Kenneth C. “‘Mexico, Where They Coin Money and Print Books:’ The Calderón Dynasty and the Mexican Book Trade, 1630-1730.” University of Texas at Austin, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/2152/26062.
Kenneth C. Ward’s dissertation provided much of the information and historical context surrounding the family and printing in Mexico.
Medina, José Toribio. La Imprenta En México, 1539-1821.
This eight-volume work remains a cornerstone of bibliographic and historical research on printing history in Mexico. The Marian Library holds a 1965 reprint edition, but the original 1907-1912 work is also digitized and available online.
— Henry Handley is an assistant professor and rare books and print collections librarian in the Marian Library.
The title page of this sermon printed by Paula de Benavides, the widow of Bernardo Calderón, indicates the control of the Inquisition in Mexico over religious printing — the protección of the Inquisition, even — of printing.
The title page of this sermon printed by Paula de Benavides, the widow of Bernardo Calderón, indicates the control of the Inquisition in Mexico over religious printing — the protección of the Inquisition, even — of printing.
Printing religious work in Mexico during the era of the Inquisition involved seeking the approbation of censors — emphasized here by an ecclesiastical coat of arms for Father Antonio Leal Araujo with imagery of the Dominican order.
Printing religious work in Mexico during the era of the Inquisition involved seeking the approbation of censors — emphasized here by an ecclesiastical coat of arms for Father Antonio Leal Araujo with imagery of the Dominican order.
Paula de Benavides’ daughter Maria inherited her press and maintained her mother’s reputation for religious printing in Mexico, as this book’s dedication to the mayordomo of the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe and the archbishop of Mexico indicates.