Page 301 - Perú indígena y virreinal

put down to popular credulity or mass hallucinations. In whatever case, there are endless accounts of scientifically unexplainable healings, effigies that bleed, dead bodies, usually those of virtuous men, exuding fragrant liquids and religious images that intercede in the course of accidents, such as the intercession of 1632, where a statue of the Virgin Mary reportedly spun upon her pedestal during an earthquake in order to turn her face to the High Altar.
In spite of such deep seated religiousness (or maybe as an outpouring of the religious passion that impregnated the society of the time), the election of prelates to the religious orders, both masculine and feminine, were typically tumultuous. On some occasions the alternativa, a system adopted by some religious communities whereby Spaniards and Creoles took turns at governing them, the crowds used to be so large that, in 1680, a Franciscan of Spanish origin, armed with a dress sword and small shield and confronted by a Creole faction began to insult them by calling them “Mazamorrero vermin”, the colloquial term for the residents of Lima, roughly equivalent to the term “gatos” (cats) in reference to Madrid inhabitants.
We should not overlook the crimes that were committed, the duels and stabbings that were also present within the religious community. “Affairs of honour” were settled within the Chapter, there were treacherous attacks under the cloak of darkness, vengeance was sought by those motivated by jealousy, slaves poisoned their owners, and accomplices were repeatedly stabbed to death for being “foul-mouthed”.
THE HEIGHT OF CULTURE
No less important than the rise in economic prosperity (the cost of living index went up by 30% over the century) was the boom in literary, scientific, intellectual and artistic output.
The heritage of artistic works of which Lima can be justifiably proud is to be found, above all, in the 17th Century. Three Italian maestros laid down the foundations for a local pictorial school: Mateo Pérez de Alessio (whose work can be seen in the Sistine Chapel and Seville Cathedral), the Jesuit, Brother Bernado Bitti, and lastly, Pedro Pablo Morón, proponents of mannerism. Later years saw a period that remains unsurpassed in the prodigious nature and importance of the works that were unique in their field, among which, no small number were the result of commissions originating in Lima itself, such as the altarpiece of Saint John the Baptist (to be found today in the Cathedral), commissioned by the La Concepción convent, or the carvings sent to the Franciscan Convent, the first a gouged piece by Martinez Morales, the second a work by Gregorio Hernandez. Amongst the sculptors of religious imagery, worthy successors to the Sevillian School, the names of Martin Alonso de la Mesa, Pedro Noquera (whose masterpiece, the choir stalls, is the highlight of any visit to the cathedral), Juan Martinez de Arrona and Diego Agnes stand out.
Canvases painted by Zurbaran, Murillo, Valdes Leal and the Flemish artist, Simon de Vos decorated the walls of the Cathedral and its cloisters. A son of King Phillip II’s court painter, Sanchez Coello, enjoyed much prestige in Lima as a painter of miniatures. The local pictorial school counted among its number, virtuosos as renowned as Leonardo Jaramillo, Francisco Bejarano, the merchant Fray Cristobal Caballero, and even a woman painter, a novelty at the time, Juana Valera.
As might be expected, the University of San Marcos was the crucible for leaning, drawing academics and students from all over the viceroyalty.
The Lima of the 17th Century can be justifiably proud of its contributions in the field of literature. Its establishment owes much, as can be demonstrated by examining the booksellers records of the time, to the importation of novels of knighthood and chivalry as well as those of the picaresque genre such as Guzman de Alfarache, El Buscón or La Picara Justina, and, as its crowning glory, substantial numbers of first editions of Don Quixote. The list of writers who found in Lima a privileged environment in which to feed their imagination included well known figures such as Diego Mexia de Fernangil, the translator of Ovid, Juan de Miramontes y Zuazola, (Armas antárticas), the already mentioned Fray Diego de Hojeda, Amarilis (Maria de Rojas y Garay?), who sent an epistle written in verse to Lope de Vega, the Jesuit, Father Rodrigo de Valdés, the author of a poem notable for the fact that it can be simultaneously read in Latin and Spanish, and finally, the satirical muse of Juan del Valle Caviedes, who took great delight in annoying the doctors of the time.
Among the notable intellectuals of the period, special mention should be given to the naturalist, Father Bernabé Cobo, the Jesuit theologian Juan Pérez de Menacho, whose fame spread as far as the Sorbonne, whilst amongst historians, the convent chroniclers, Calancha, Cordoba Salinas, Menéndez and Vázquez stand out. In the field of science, names such as Francisco Ruiz Lozano (Tratado de cometas) are worthy of mention, as are Capitan Juan Vazquez de Arce, the illustrator of Galileo’s works, the Augustine monk Fray Jeronimo de Villegas, the man responsible for the plans for the bridge over the River Rimac and the important cosmographer, the Belgian Jean Raymond Conic, who designed the city walls, built in 1685.
The citizens of Lima’s love of theatrical spectacle was particularly noteworthy. Not only were public performances put on during the festival of Corpus Christi and in the open air Comedy Theatre, there were also private performances in the Viceroy’s Palace and in the homes of eminent local residents. Comedies were staged from both the classical repertory, from the works of Spanish playwrights such as Lope de Vega and Calderon de la Barca, and from the works of local luminaries: Cristóbal Palomeque wrote Varios sucesos de Lima (1622), Francisco Enriquez de Valdes penned Antes que todos, mi Amigo in 1652, Juan de Urdaide wrote Amor en Lima es azar in 1675 whilst Lorenzo de las Llamosas was the author of También se vengan los dioses (1689).
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COIN
So much prosperity and visible opulence, reports of which were undoubtedly repeated with ever more embellishment by travellers and spies, could not fail to excite the envy of those nations jealous of the Spanish Monarchy. The threat from corsairs and pirates to the nearby coast was constant: Spielbergen (1615), L’Hermite (1624) besieged Callao whilst Sharp (1680) and Davis (1686) kept the population of Lima on tenterhooks; on the first occasion the intercession of Saint Rosa was necessary in order to allay the city’s anguish.
To this external strife, internal misfortune was added. Earthquakes in 1606, 1630, 1647, 1655, 1678 and the most devastating of all in 1687, endemic disease such as malaria, diphtheria, measles, typhoid and smallpox, and crop failures all rocked the city.
Any portrait of Lima in the 17th Century must make reference to one of the most evident symbols of female circumspection and restraint in the region, the headscarf. The use of this item of clothing, with its roots in Arabic culture, was widespread until the middle of the 19th Century in spite of various ecclesiastical and governmental attempts to prohibit it.
In contrast to such misery we should not forget the role of those eternal elements of any court, the buffoons. Cristobalote, Pio V, Iron Ball and Bogoviche were the principal purveyors of humour, without forgetting the buffoon Don Juan Manrique de Lara, a dwarf, armed with a lance and shield and wearing a helmet and gauntlets who would openly challenge anyone who dared to deny the existence of the Virgin Mary’s immaculate conception.
peru’s fortune: silver and viceroyal silversmith’s craft Cristina Esteras Martín
Shortly after the Spaniards’ arrival in Peru, news of riches in gold and silver arrived and the island of Puná was quickly named “la isla de plata” (“the Island of Silver”) [map by Diego Menéndez (1575)]. In Cajamarca in 1533, one of governor Pizarro’s pages tricked his father by telling him, referring to the newly conquered lands, that there was “more gold and silver than iron in Vizcaya and more sheep than in Soria.” And in this same North Andean city where Atahualpa was made prisoner, the Spaniards got hold of eleven tons of silver. Very soon, the
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