From the holdings of the John Hay Library at Brown University

The José Toribio Medina Collection of Latin American Imprints, 1500-1800 is one of the rarest collections of Latin American and European imprints about Latin America. Itcomprises Latin American printed material published before 1800 selected from the great bibliographies of colonial Hispanic-American printing and European Americana compiled by José Toribio Medina. When the Brown University filmed these publications from the Biblioteca Nacional de Santiago de Chile and other South American libraries, it sought to capture only those publications that were absent from their extensive holdings. The bulk of the collection includes imprints from colonial presses in Spanish America: it is particularly strong in those areas that represent the earliest centers of publishing in Latin America: Mexico, Peru, and Guatemala. Imprints from the City of Mexico, the earliest center of printing in the Western Hemisphere (1539), occupy the nucleus of the collection with over 900 titles dating from 1554 through 1800. Peru, the second Spanish colony to acquire a printing press, is represented by roughly 240 imprints that date from 1592, while the140 imprints from Guatemala start in 1663.

This collection is organized into 7 parts. With the exception of part 7, titles within each part are in chronological order of publication:

Part 1: Mexican Imprints, 1554-1750
30 reels

Part 2: Mexican Imprints, 1750-1800
35 reels

Part 3: Spanish Imprints, 1530-1646
34 reels

Part 4: Spanish Imprints, 1647-1692
31 reels

Part 5: Spanish Imprints, 1692-1788
48 reels

Part 6: Guatemalan Imprints: 1663-1800
9 reels

Part 7: Imprints from Peru, and Los Angeles with Additional Titles from Mexico, Spain, and Other Regions
61 reels

Complete Collection: 248 reels