Itineraries of the Printing Works of Alcalá de Henares. Route of the 16th century

Abstract

Ana Naseiro Ramudo

In the sixteenth century a printing press was created in Alcalá de Henares linked to the creation of the University projected by Cardinal Francisco Jiménez Cisneros. The cardinal himself brings the first printers, proofreaders and typographers, inaugurating the printing press with his masterpiece: the Polyglot Bible. It thus creates a monopolistic business complex in the city composed of families and sagas of printers, booksellers, stationers, inkwellers, correctors, foundries, cashiers, bookbinders who maintain a monopoly around the church and the crown centered on the sagas of the Brocar, the Angle, and their heirs and heirs, in the Gracián, the Martínez, the Robles, the Ramirez. The Alcalaína printing business had a local, national and transatlantic projection. Until the business passed to Madrid with the establishment of the court capital in the town with Philip II, even so, Alcalá remained the printing press of Madrid.