An Approach to the Emblematic and Allegorical Culture in the Viceroyalty of Peru 1 BY JOSÉ JULIO GARCÍA ARRANZ UNIVERSIDAD DE EXTREMADURA (SPAIN) A comprehensive and unifying study of the different aspects and manifestations of what we can refer to as the ‘emblematic culture’ in the viceroyalty of Peru 2 is still ‘under construction’. 3 Although the 1 This essay is part of the research project Biblioteca digital Siglo de Oro IV (código FFI2012- 3436), directed by Prof. Nieves Pena Sueiro and financed by the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad of the Spanish Government, in the terms of the VI Plan Nacional de I+D+i 2008-2011. Its elaboration also relied on financial support from the Government of Extremadura (Spain) and the FEDER funds, granted to the Research Group ‘Patrimonio&ARTE. Unidad de Conservación del Patrimonio Artístico’, directed by Dr. Pilar Mogollón Cano-Cortés, of which I am a member. Special thanks are due to Dr. Bárbara Skinfill Nogal, who has provided us with bibliographical references that have been essential for the elaboration of this essay. 2 The territory of the Viceroyalty of Peru was much larger than the present-day Republic of Peru. In general terms, the Viceroyalty of Peru was the colonial administrative institution founded in 1542, with Lima as capital, by the fusion of the previous Governorates of New Castile, New Toledo, New Andalusia and New Léon. It originally extension encompassed the western coast of South America, going from the Isthmus of Panama to Tierra del Fuego, the southernmost part of the mainland. To the east, the Viceroyalty of Peru was limited by the Treaty of Tordesillas, that established the highly disputed borders with the Portuguese-controlled territories in South America (General Government of Brazil). In the course of time, the Viceroyalty of Peru was dismembered, giving up territories to the establishment of the Viceroyalty of New Granada (1717) and the Viceroyalty of Río de la Plata (1776). It was dissolved with the Peruvian Declaration of Independence (28 July 1821) and the subsequent Battle of Ayacucho (9 December 1824). For a geopolitical notion of the territory corresponding to this Viceroyalty, see the map in the Introductory essay. 3 As Manuel Hernández González has argued recently ( ‘Historiografía reciente sobre la cultura y la vida cotidiana en la América colonial (1995-2005)’, Chronica Nova, 32 (2006), 51-66), within the wide field of research that he refers to as ‘symbolical culture’, there has been growing interest in the use of public space, the reconstruction of the imaginary, and the conception of power in Ibero-America. Among the works emerging from these recent developments, one can refer to François Xavier Guerra and Annick Lempérière’s Los espacios públicos en Iberoamérica. Ambigüedades y problemas. Siglos XVIII-XIX (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1998); and Carlos Alberto González Sánchez and Enriqueta Vila Villar’s Grafías del imaginario. Representaciones culturales en España y América (siglos XVI-XVIII), Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2003. However, in this essay another