One way to understand the network of Spanish Habsburg places in the early modern period is to think about individuals experiencing architecture. Zooming out to take in the wide space of empire allows us to explore how buildings and public spaces were shaped, often with coherent messages rendered through carved heraldry and ornament. Zooming in to consider the lived experience of individuals gives us an opportunity to consider how particular buildings functioned in society. This lecture examines seventeenth-century architecture on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean via the experiences two accomplished Dominican priests—the Mexican-born Antonio de Monroy and the Peruvian Juan Meléndez—who traversed the Spanish world, interacting with other imperial subjects. It also considers the experience of an exceptional American-born woman, Rose of Lima. Although far less mobile than her male Dominican counterparts, her reputation and image traveled widely in the seventeenth-century, even inspiring architectural undertakings fostered in part by Meléndez and Monroy.

Summary

By Kirstin Ohrt

Jesús Escobar *96 presented “Americans Abroad in the Seventeenth Century: People, Buildings, and the Space of Empire” as part of the ART 502 lecture series on Thursday afternoon. Exploring transatlantic connections expressed through architecture in early modern Spain, Italy, Mexico, and Peru, Escobar tracked individuals’ lived experiences. Three protagonists, ultimately, blazed his trail. Two were Dominican priests, Mexican-born Antonio de Monroy and Peruvian Juan Meléndez, and the third, Rosa of Lima, the first saint born in the Americas, represented a connection between the two.

“I’m especially interested in how buildings in public spaces were shaped, often with coherent messages and symbols,” said Escobar. “If these messages could be understood, it was because of a shared architectural language.”

Meléndez traveled to Spain and Italy to work on and print his Tesoros verdaderos de las Yndias (1681), acting on, as Escobar put it, a serious case of “early modern FOMO” that was partly inspired by a marble sculpture of Rose of Lima by a sculptor associated with Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s studio. Meléndez’s chronicle collapses the vast space between Europe and the Americas, says Escobar.

Meléndez celebrates Mexican-born Monroy, who served as Archbishop of Santiago de Compostela and ultimately as Master of the Order of Preachers, in Volume 1 of Tesoros with a double portrait engraving depicting him with Monroy by Bernard de Bailliu, after Giovanni Battista Gaetano. The accompanying text hailed Monroy as an ambassador who leaves the world dumbfounded—and “understanding that there is much good in the Indies.”

In the second volume of Tesoros, Meléndez dedicates 41 chapters to Rosa. Though she never left Peru, Rosa's “reputation and image traveled widely in the seventeenth-century, even inspiring architectural undertakings fostered in part by Meléndez and Monroy,” said Escobar.

Summing up, Escobar suggested “These individuals and their experiences make the architectural history of the early modern Spanish world worthy of deeper exploration.”