The Very Nature of God

Front Cover

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Title Page

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pp. iiii-

Copyright

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pp. iv-

Contents

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pp. vii-viii

Illustrations

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pp. ix-

Tables

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pp. x-

Preface and Acknowledgments

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pp. xi-xiii

Introduction

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pp. 1-21

Fearing death, Jos� Andr�s Linan called the notary, Miguel Leonardo de Sevilla, to his home in Mexico City to record his will on October 11, 1696. Jos� was ill, probably from the typhus epidemic that ravaged the capital of New Spain in that year, and confined to bed. After the notary had written the will preamble, which contained a profession of faith and an invocation of saintly aid at the time of death and judgment, Jos� designed...

Part I: Baroque Catholicism

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pp. 23-

1: Baroque Mexico City

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pp. 25-27

Mexico City, the political, financial, and ecclesiastical heart of Spain’s wealthiest American colony, proved particularly suited to support the florescence of baroque Catholicism. Founded in 1521 by Hernán Cortés on the ruins of the Aztec capital, Mexico City was the largest urban center in the Americas in the eighteenth century. By midcentury, it had a population of...

2: Sacred Immanence

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pp. 28-50

In October 1779 Mar�a Manuela De Jes�s Cadena Galindo, a mestiza nurse who worked in the Hospital Real de los Naturales (Royal Indian Hospital) of Mexico City, called the notary Francisco Juan de Velasco to her bed to write her will. She was ill and probably feared that death was near. She asked to be buried in her parish church and requested a humble funeral because of her poverty. She stated that she had been married twice...

3: Performative and Liturgical Piety

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pp. 51-69

On February 16, 1696, In�s Velarde, widow of the late Capitan Don Miguel de Vera, a former notary of the Mexico City cabildo (city council), redacted her will before Juan de Condarco y C�ceres. Despite the typhus (matlaz�huatl) epidemic that ravaged the city, In�s was in good health. She had carefully prepared for the pious act of will writing, issuing over thirty meticulously designed religious directives in her testament. Two directives...

4: The Splendor of Worship

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pp. 70-92

In September 1717 Mar�a Josefa De Abenda�o y Ordu�a, an unmarried woman of considerable wealth, wrote a remarkable will in which she issued sixty-four pious directives. She was healthy at the time and called upon Juan Clemente Guerrero to serve as her notary. Because Mar�a Josefa had no heirs, she was free to distribute her wealth as she saw fit. She dedicated her entire estate, valued at 48,000 pesos, to religious ends, minus two...

5: Charity, Confraternities, and Community

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pp. 93-116

In November 1737 Jos� De Arce y Carriedo, the owner of a hacienda in Cuernavaca and a butcher shop in Mexico City, called the notary Manuel de Benjumea Jim�nez to his home to redact his will. Jos�, ill and confined to bed, included eight pious clauses in his testament. Just after the preamble and the disposition of his funeral, he claimed membership in at least six pious brotherhoods in Mexico City including the Third Order of...

Part II: Religious Reform

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pp. 117-

6: Reforming Mexico City

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pp. 119-123

The wealth and prestige of Mexico City made it an important site for reform, both religious and secular, during the second half of the eighteenth century. The Bourbon monarchs, particularly Charles III (1759–88), sought to revive Spain’s military and political stature after the final collapse of the Spanish Habsburgs’ continental empire at the beginning of the century. Influenced by Enlightenment thought, the Bourbons sought to increase...

7: The Reformers’ Program

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pp. 124-153

In the mid-eighteenth century a new piety emerged in Spain and its territories that challenged baroque Catholicism. Adherents to this new piety, in part influenced by currents of the Enlightenment that were spreading in Europe and the Americas at the time, stressed the need for individual, quiet, and inward forms of devotion and rejected ostentatious display, resort to miraculous relics and images, and dramatic forms of symbolic piety characteristic of baroque Catholicism.¹ In Mexico a segment of the episcopate...

8: Immanence, Splendor, and Liturgical Piety in the Age of Reform

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pp. 154-187

In December 1813 José Buenaventura Santa María y Liparza, a prebendary of the Mexico City cathedral chapter wrote his will with the aid of the notary Juan Manuel Pozo. Although not infected by the “mysterious fevers” that plagued Mexico City that year, José suffered from unspecified chronic ailments (achaques) that sapped his vigor. José devoted an unusual amount of his will to the design of his funeral. Like a growing number of testators in Mexico City during the latter half of the eighteenth and early...

9: Charity and Confraternitiesin the Age of Reform

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pp. 188-215

In December 1779 Juan De Sierra Uru�uela, a wealthy merchant and a familiar, or voluntary agent, of the Holy Office of the Inquisition, wrote his will before the notary Diego Jacinto de Leon. Juan was in good health, unaffected by the smallpox epidemic that swept Mexico City that year. Perhaps inspired by the toll the plague had exacted on the urban populace, he bequeathed much of his estate to charitable causes. He donated between five hundred and one thousand pesos each to nine hospitals in Mexico City, ...

Conclusion

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pp. 216-224

On the day before Christmas in 1813 Mar�a Guadalupe Antonia Sandoval Garc�a Bravo wrote her will before Manuel Ymaz y Cabanillas. Mar�a, a doncella, was in good health despite the epidemic that plagued Mexico City at the time. Although Mar�a issued other pious directives in her will, her highly unusual funeral clause reveals much about the fate of religious reform in Bourbon Mexico City. Apparently influenced by the simplicity encouraged by reformed Catholics, Mar�a ordered that her cadaver, ...

APPENDIX: Note on Sources

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pp. 225-243

NOTES

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pp. 245-288

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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pp. 289-303

INDEX

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pp. 304-312

Back Cover

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