Name Felipe Zuniga | ||
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Felipe de Zuniga y Ontiveros (1717, Mexico City – 1793, Mexico City) was a scientist, cartographer and publisher in New Spain during the Spanish colonial period. He was also royal land surveyor and hydraulic and mining engineer.
Together with his brother Cristobal, he took over the Imprenta Antuerpiana (Antuerpiana Press) in 1752. They remained as sole proprietors until late 1764. By 1767 this was the largest printing establishment in the Americas. In that year Manuel Antonio Valdes y Munguia joined the business. After Zuniga's death in 1793, Valdes took on Luis Abadiano as a partner (about 1821). At the time of Valdes's death in 1831, the firm was the oldest publisher in Mexico.
From 1762 to 1780 Zuniga y Ontiveros published Efemerides calculadas y pronosticadas segun el meridiano de Mexico. These octavo volumes contained information on eclipses and other astronomical phenomena. In 1767 he began publishing Guia de Forasteros, a kind of almanac, which was published each year through 1792, although the name was changed to Calendario mensual (Monthly Calendar). He also published an updated version of Carlos de Siguenza y Gongora's map of the valley of Mexico.
Zuniga paid much attention to detail in the works he published, including the typefaces. He spent 50,000 pesos acquiring type from Antwerp and Madrid. He was the first to use type cast in New Spain, by the clockmaker and printer Dimas Rangel, with whom Zuniga edited Estatutos de la Real Academia de San Carlos (Statutes of the Royal Academy of San Carlos) (1785).
He was the author of Bomba hidraulica para levantar las aguas (Hydraulic Pump to Raise Water) (1770) and a sonnet published in Fenix de los mineros ricos (1779).