Spanish Books in Michiel van Hamont’s Bookshop (1569): A Case Study of the Distribution of Spanish Books in Sixteenth-Century Brussels

Abstract

This paper is dedicated to the study of the dissemination of Spanish books—books written in Spanish—during the 16th century in Brussels. This study is based on an inventory of the bookseller-printer Michiel van Hamont made in 1569, at the request of the authorities searching for heretical books. This is the first survey conducted on this subject. Spanish books that have effectively circulated within the Southern Netherlands, have generally been neglected by scholars. They mainly focused their attention on local production (which books were printed by whom) and export to the Iberian World (Kingdom of Spain and Americas). They studied the rise of Antwerp as a major centre of Spanish vernacular editions and its role in the dissemination of Spanish books. The first findings in this paper show that the distribution of Spanish books in Brussels in the mid-sixteenth century is merely a marginal phenomenon.