Here is a set of essays on Historia general del Piru that discuss not only the manuscript's physical components--quires and watermarks, scripts and pigments--but also its relation to other Andean manuscripts, Inca textiles, European portraits, and Spanish sources and publication procedures. The sum is an unusually detailed and interdisciplinary analysis of the creation and fate of a historical and artistic treasure.
"Of the three extant illustrated manuscripts chronicling the history of the Inca empire and early Spanish rule in the Andes, two are by the Mercedarian friar Martin de Murua, who probably arrived in Peru in the 1570s. His Historia del origen, y genealogia real de los reyes ingas del Piru (1590) and Historia general del Piru (1616) drew on the author's experiences among the indigenous peoples and colonial officials of viceregal Peru as well as on accounts by other Spanish writers and the talents of several Andean illustrators. The Historia general - now known as the Getty Murua - comprises thirty-eight hand-colored images, most depicting Inca kings and queens, and nearly four hundred folios of beautifully calligraphed text. The essays gathered in this volume focus not only on the manuscript's physical components - quires and watermarks, scripts and pigments - but also on its relation to Inca textiles, European portraits, Murua's other manuscript, and the intellectual and social context that gave rise to but did not publish his Historia general. The Getty Murua provides a complex and original analysis of the creation and fate of this early modern historical and artistic treasure." --Book Jacket.
This volume showcases dynamic developments in the field of manuscript research that go beyond traditional textual, iconographic, or codicological studies. Using state-of-the-art conservation technologies, scholars investigate how four manuscripts—the Galvin Murúa, the Getty Murúa, the Florentine Codex, and the Relación de Michoacán—were created and demonstrate why these objects must be studied in a comparative context. The forensic study of manuscripts provides art historians, anthropologists, curators, and conservators with effective methods for determining authorship, identifying technical innovations, and contextualizing illustrated histories. This information, in turn, allows for more nuanced arguments that transcend the information that the written texts and painted images themselves provide. The book encourages scholars to think broadly about the manuscripts of colonial Mexico and Peru in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and employ new techniques and methods of research.
From antiquity to the present day, color has been embedded with cultural meaning. Associated with blood, fire, fertility, and life force, the color red has always been extremely difficult to achieve and thus highly prized." "This book discusses the origin of the red colorant derived from the insect cochineal, its early use in Precolumbian ritual textiles from Mexico and Peru, and the spread of the American dyestuff through cultural interchange following the Spanish discovery and conquest of the New World in the 16th century. Drawing on examples from the collections of the Metropolitan Museum, it documents the use of this red-colored treasure in several media and throughout the world.
