Due to the importance of New Spain administrative base, Mexico was the location of the first printing shop (1539), first university (1551), first public park (1592), and first public library (1640) in the Americas, among other institutions. Important artists of the colonial period, include the writers Juan Ruiz de Alarcón, Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, painters Cristóbal de Villalpando and Miguel Cabrera, and architect Manuel Tolsá. The Academy of San Carlos (1781) was the first major school and museum of art in the Americas.  German scientist Alexander von Humboldt spent a year in Mexico, finding the scientific community in the capital active and learned.  He met Mexican scientist Andrés Manuel del Río Fernández, who discovered the element vanadium in 1801.