Page 317 - Perú indígena y virreinal

even cursory inspection. These coins were in circulation for a long time, until they were replaced in the 18th Century by coins minted in a press of far higher quality, struck on perfectly circular blanks with fine milled edges.
The Spanish monarchs took full political advantage of the opportunity afforded by the faces of the coins. From the first examples onward, coins carried a combination of the coat of arms or other heraldic symbols of Castile and the emblem of Charles V, the Pillars of Hercules upon the ocean waves and the motto plus ultra. Later, two hemispheres were added between the columns, symbolising the monarchy upon which the sun never set. This in turn became an authentic heraldic emblem, accompanied by a motto in Latin that read King, by the will of God, of the Spains and the Indies.
The portrait of the monarch was not introduced onto coins until the reign of Fernando VI. The enormous distance that separated Lima from the Court in Madrid led to lengthy delays between the arrival of news of the proclamation of a new King and that of the die-stamp of his portrait. For this reason, it is by no means uncommon to find coins in the name of one ruler but showing the bust of another. After these iconographic innovations, coins minted in Lima, as elsewhere, were of two types: those that carried the royal portrait and those depicting the emblematic columns.
Beyond the frontiers of the Spanish monarchy, the Reals that were minted in Lima were highly regarded, as was the case with all Spanish silver. With the British and Portuguese colonial worlds therefore, these coins were legal tender, one of the faces having been counter-stamped with a bodkin, or small engraver’s punch.
lima-city of the enlightenment
Ramón Gutiérrez
The foundation of Lima in 1535 marked the culmination in South America of the process of formulating grid style urban layout, formalised by Phillip II in 1573 in his Ordenanzas de Población or “City Decrees”. The new capital of the Viceroyalty, organised along Renaissance patterns, incorporated the ancient huacas or burial mounts and defined the central character of its Plaza Mayor.
The convents, occupying extensive tracts of land within the city, shaped the layout of its neighbourhoods, or barrios whilst the indigenous population were moved from their lands by the River Rimac to the enclosure of El Cercado.
Towards the end of the 17th Century, as a result of the threat from European pirates the city built its defences: The Royal Felipe Fort in the port of Callao and the walls that ringed the city centre. The Jesuit, Juan Ramón Coninck’s design included indigenous neighbourhood of “El Cercado” as well as some agricultural land that would be able to provide for the city in the case of a long, drawn out siege.
In the 18th Century, the small court of the Viceroyalty showed all its splendour in the proliferation of baroque celebrations. More than half the days of the year were marked by festivities of one kind or another commemorating the patron saints of churches, convents, brotherhoods and guilds. This is without counting the civic metropolitan celebrations or those pertaining to the colonial authorities.
On these festivities, the city rose to occasion, decking its public spaces, streets (which resembled religious thoroughfares) and balconies out with tapestries, paintings and silverware, whilst ephemeral scenery was constructed to add to the spectacle becoming veritable landmarks to be visited in turn.
The houses of the nobility, the merchant class and public servants were embellished with furniture made either by local craftsmen or imported from Europe. Many homes boasted a room exclusively for piano playing.
The wealth generated by the mining industry could be seen in the solid silver vessels, receptacles and platters produced by Lima’s silversmiths or artisans from Cusco, Puno and Arequipa.
The Catholic Church, which had become the centre of artistic patronage, commissioned work not only from the local workshops, but also from painters from Cusco and sculptors from Quito. In the 17th and 18th Centuries, these works complemented the important pieces of religious art that had previously been ordered from workshops in Seville. One can also find series of works originating from Nueva España (Mexico), ivory pieces from The Philippines and ceramic ware from the East.
Secular painting, of which there was considerably less work produced, tended to be portraits of Viceroys, bishops, civil officials and members of the local nobility, although it is possible to find pieces inspired by literary themes (Don Quixote), mythology, landscapes and battle scenes.
The Enlightenment influence, which had a French flavour to it, coincided with the period in which Amat was Viceroy. He invigorated urban life in the city, creating the Paseo de las Aguas, or Water Walk and overseeing the building of the Acho Bullring in the Rimac neighbourhood.
Rococo taste, as well as the innovations introduced with Late Baroque is best represented by the oval floor in the Church of the Orphans and the city’s first cemeteries such as the one accompanying San Francisco church. Nevertheless, the persistence of baroque funeral mounds (even during the reign of Charles III), sums up the tradition of “the archer’s death” and ratified the integration process that incorporated the indigenous peoples into the arts, evident on the high plains and in the mountains around Cusco and Arequipa.
Lima’s architecture is an emblematic testimony to the desire to create a modern city of the Enlightenment at the same time as the new tastes coming from Madrid were imposing the neo-classicism dictats in diametric opposition to the baroque sentiment felt by its denizens. The later works by the Presbyterian Matías Maestro during the period of the last Viceroys represent the closing of the circle of Enlightenment prior to independence.
the viceroy amat
María Margarita Cuyàs
Felipe Manuel Cayetano de Amat y de Junyent, Planella y Vergós, the sixth child of the youngest of the first Marquis of Castellbell’s sons, was born in early March, 1707 in Vacarisses Castle in the Western Vallés. A student at the Jesuit School of Cordelles in Barcelona, at the age of twelve he left his humanistic education behind in order to pursue his military career. When he reached fourteen years of age he joined the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, and after spending some time on the islands of Malta and Mallorca, went to Morocco, where he began active service. As he was not the oldest son, he had to provide financially for himself, relying on his own talent and hard-work, and so he sailed for Italy in order to accompany the then Prince Duke Charles in the campaign to regain control of Naples and Sicily, which was then in Austrian hands. In the summer of 1734, the young king Charles VII of Naples, who would, in years to come, assume the Spanish throne as Charles III, decorated him in recognition of his work, although the young Felipe Manuel would have to wait twenty years before being named Governor, Capitan General of the Kingdom of Peru and President of the Royal Court of Santiago de Chile, posts he held until in 1761, the now king Charles III promoted him as the Viceroy Governor, Capitan General of Peru and President of the Royal Court of Lima. He achieved this position as ruler of far-off, exotic Peru, the most important Viceroyalty in the Spanish Empire at a mature age and having spent a life dedicated to hard work and professional efficiency. Amat, who perhaps due to family tradition had always been unconditionally loyal to the Bourbons, stayed true to this line and never disappointed his Lord, to whom he would always refer in his native Catalonian tongue as l’amo—“The Master”.
Manuel Amat was the very model of the governor with the general despotism of the Enlightenment, and if it can be said that during his fifteen years in charge, his judgement wavered, then at least never before had so much gold arrived back in Spain or with greater
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