Reglas para el piélago, sonda para lo insondable y camino para lo inaccesible. Martín de Velasco y su Arte de sermones

According to historical accounts of the period, preaching in the Baroque world was meant to be a spectacular event carried out in a theatrical space. Music and stage props were used in order to reinforce the message of the sermon. It was a feast for the senses, with the audience surrounded by sculptures, paintings, and artistic stained glass depicting scenes from the Bible, while the scent of the incense combined with other sensorial stimuli were deployed to create a multilayered spectacle. At the center of this display of lights and shadows, of sounds and meanings, of perfumes and images, was the figure of the baroque preacher. In this essay, I study the connection between preaching and theatricality in the colonial Latin-American world. To that end, I analyze the treatise on Christian oratory entitled Arte de sermones para saber hacerlos y predicarlos (1677) written by Martín de Velasco, a Franciscan Creole born in Santa Fe de Bogotá. In the first part of the essay, I describe how Velasco creates his own figure of a lettered Creole through scenes that use a belligerent rhetoric. In the second part, I analyze Section XI of Arte, dedicated entirely to explain the role of the actio in the pulpit. In both instances, I found that Velasco's text echoes a larger discussion about the circulation and production of knowledge in the complex colonial Latin-American world.