Voile

réf. 1066 — Providence. 1975. Brown University Press. 1st American Edition. Very Good in Dustjacket. 0870571443. Translated from the Spanish by Frances M. Lopez-Morillas. Edited and with an Introduction by R. C. Padden. 209 pages. hardcover. Jacket illustration: detail from the first printed sketch of Potosi in Pedro de Cieza de Leon's La crnica del Peril Seville 1553. keywords: Latin America Peru History. DESCRIPTION - Spanish colonial life is shown in a new light in these robust tales available in English for the first time of the legendary era of the great South American silver center of Potosi a seventeenth-century boom town �raised' according to one of its governors �in pandemonium by greed at the foot of riches discovered by accident.' In the seventeenth century when the English settlement of North America was only beginning Potosi had reached the peak of its amazing development becoming one of the richest cities in the world and-although high above the Andean timberline-the most populous city in the Western Hemisphere. Along with the inevitable decline that ensued came tales of what had become a legendary past. In the eighteenth century Arzans retold many of these tales with gusto in his monumental Historia de la Villa Imperial de Potosi which except for a few fragments remained unpublished until 1965. Then appearing in three volumes in the original Spanish it was said to be �like the great silver mountain of Potosi itself but full of riches of a quite different kind' TLS. Now these riches are available in a selection of tales translated from the original. Among them are accounts of the elaborate public ceremonies that took place on such occasions as the death of Philip II and the accession to the throne of Philip III. Most of the tales however are about the private lives of the Potosinos as a sampling of the titles suggests: The Downfall of Don Francisco Chocata The Adventures of the Warrior Maidens A Virgin's Revenge The Salvation of Antonio Escorron Claudia the Witch The Brief Engagement of Francisca Mirue�a The Reformation of Don Francisco Aguirre and The Trials of Do�a Teresa. Potosi the Times Literary Supplement reviewer observed was �a microcosm of the Spanish empire in America and Arz�ns the meticulous annalist of a particular city was no less a chronicler pf Spanish society in the New World.' Tales of Potosi recreates that society-through the tales themselves and through the introduction. The latter by R. C. Padden a professor of history at Brown University is in its own right a major contribution to Latin American studies. inventory #1066 hardcover