Note 130:1 — PARAGUAYAN AND ARGENTINE BIBLIOGRAPHY[127:1]
Reading edition
It has always been supposed that Paraguay was the first country of South America to possess a printing-press after Peru, but this honour may possibly be due to Brazil. In the memorial of the inhabitants of the province of Pernambuco to John IV., King of Portugal, beseeching his assistance in the expulsion of the Dutch invaders (1645), printed in "O Valoroso Lucideno" by Manoel Calado, Lisbon, 1648, the Dutch are accused of having propagated heresy by means of tracts, "which have been found in the hands of many persons of tender age." These cartilhas must evidently have been in Portuguese, they are more likely to have been printed than in MS., and it is perhaps more probable that they were printed on the spot than exported from Holland. If this is the case, Pernambuco is entitled to the honour of being the first city in South America in which printing was exercised after Lima.