Un impresor ante la crisis de las Luces: Fermín Villalpando (1794-1830)

Abstract

Taking as its point of departure an exhaustive series of cuantitative analysis, this article studies the production of the printer Fermín Villalpando, active in Madrid between the years 1794-1830. Throughout his business career, which extended from the reign of Charles IV to the restoration of the absolutist monarchy under Ferdinand VII (having been able to survive the dramatic and fateful years of the Peninsular War), Villalpando printed a total of 281 different works, covering a broad spectrum of topics (new thought, travel literature, poetry, theatre, Spanish classics, medicine, law, religion), all of which reflect, as would a seismograph, the political unrest and changing cultural fashions of these difficult decades. (In 1821, for example, he printed in his presses works by Jeremy Bentham, Cesare Beccaria and Fray Diego José de Cádiz). Characteristically, the Villalpando press always took special care with the material design and presentation of its books, specializing in small formats that combine beautiful workmanship with a serene Neoclassical design.