Rethinking Book History, Circulation, and Translation in the Early Novo-Hispanic Period: Friar Juan de Zumárraga and Cristóbal Cabrera (1539-1549)

Abstract

Drawing on contemporary theoretical assumptions on Latin American book and translation history, several recent research works, and chronologically ordered manuscripts and printed material related to Mexico first bishop Franciscan Friar Juan de Zumárraga and his secretary and secular clergyman Cristóbal Cabrera, we perform a reappraisal of book history and humanist pedagogical translations in the early novo-Hispanic period in Mexico (1539–1549). In this article, we track the catechetical processes followed by the first bishop of Mexico —as done by contemporaries in Mexico, such as Vasco de Quiroga, and prelates and religious men throughout South America. This is done through Friar Zumárraga’s biographical data, as well as manuscripts and preserved printed material from Juan Pablos’ printing press in Mexico City and other printing shops across the Iberian Peninsula and Italy. Also, we look at the translatological contexts found in those texts published during the Fray Juan de Zumárraga’s episcopate, and in some of Cristóbal Cabrera’s poetic pieces printed in Spain and Italy. Thus, new avenues are opened for research on translation history and book as a cultural object, based on its possession, circulation, and pedagogical and cultural use during the 16th century, within the context of the Hispanic and Novo-Hispanic influence both in Europe and America.