One of Pedro del Rio Zañartu’s most complete collections is the assortment of newspapers from the different ports and cities he visited. During his trip to Asia in 1881, he obtained several newspapers from Japan, China, India, Turkey and Syria, among others. This example allows us to have a look at the reality of this period, such as means of transportation, news and advertising of the time.
The European printing culture found fertile ground in Japan, where a high percentage of the population was literate and the market for cultural products such as engravings was larger, even more so than the main European capitals.