Peruvian collection, 1583-1892 - Archives & Manuscripts at Duke University Libraries (original) (raw)

This collection of heterogeneous material, generally relating to the colonial period of Peru, falls roughly into three groups centering around commerce and industry, literary activity, and religious and social history. Several manuscripts in the first group contain information on the mining of mercury, 1786-1787. Literary materials include the poems of Caviedes in the seventeenth century script useful for correcting errors in the copies published by Ricardo Palma; a copy of iconoclastic and mysterious poems by Antonio de Solís; one cuaderno of the Documentos históricos collected by Manuel de Odriozola; and three Documentos literarios from contemporary publications. Among the Items relating to religion and social history are a compilation of the papers of Peruvian viceroys and others, 1580-1818; an expediente concerning witchcraft and idolatry in Peru; original papers on the modernization of learning which Charles III attempted to impose upon the empire; copy of the proceso of Mariano Tupac Amaru; and a booklet, 1794, describing the founding and development of Quito, Ecuador.

Some of these Items, formerly the property of Manuel de Odriozola, the Peruvian literary historian who brought together this collection, are listed in the Cátalogo de la Biblioteca Peruana Propiedad de Dn. Francisco Perez de Velasco (Lima, 1918). Rubén Vargas Ugarte, S. J., describes some of these manuscripts in Manuscritos Peruanos en las Bibliotecas de América (Buenos Aires, 1945, pp. 230-243) which is volume IV of his Biblioteca Peruana (Lima, 1935- ). John Tate Lanning, James B. Duke Professor of History, also mentioned these manuscripts in his article "The Hispanic Collection" published in Gnomon, Essays for the Dedication of the William R. Perkins Library (Duke Unlversity, April 15 and 16, 1970).

This guide to the collection is the result of extensive recataloging in which, for the first time, considerable attention has been given to analyzing the content of the manuscripts. The descriptions of many of the manuscripts have been enlarged, and, in some cases, author and title information has been changed or refined. Many entries have been added to the card catalog based upon these new descriptions. Copies of these cards have been included in this guide in order to provide additional means of access to the contents of the collection.