Blas Valera

Estudio preliminar acerca del capacquipu disenado por Raimondo di Sangro y de las relaciones entre su diseño y el archivo Miccinelli. Discusión acerca del archivo Miccinelli y de las publicaciones de Laura Laurencich y otros autores, y de la posible autenticidad de una parte del archivo, aunque en el mismo se defiendan tesis de dudosa credibilidad.

This work tries to fill a gap in the Inca memory, showing a connection between two archaeological findings: tocapu llave inca and table-yupana, at the present considered unconnected, and their possible association with the yanantin-masintin, a philosophical model that still survives in the Andean popular memory, although the Colonialism censorship.

In the spirit of justice Blas Valera broke all the rules -- and paid with his life.  Hundreds of years later, his ghost has returned to haunt the official record.  But is it the truth, and will it set the record straight?  This is the story of Father Blas Valera, a mestizo Jesuit caught between the Andean world and that of the Spanish conquistadors.  Valera believed that the Inca culture, religion and language were equal to their Christian counterparts -- a belief that was denounced as heretical by leaders of the Jesuits -- a new religious order that was striving to survive.

Four centuries later, this Incan chronicler had been all but forgotten until an Italian anthropologist discovered some startling documents in a private collection in Naples.  The documents claimed -- among other things -- that Valera's death had been faked by the Jesuits; that he returned secretly to Peru; and that he penned the famous chronicle attributed to Guaman Poma.  Far from settling anything, the documents created an international sensation among scholars and led to a bitter dispute over how they should be assessed.  The Italian scholar who first revealed them received death threats for her role in publishing them.  In the Jesuit and the Incas, Hyland takes a balanced approach between the two bitter sides of the debate. She argues that the first set of manuscripts found are "true lies" -- colonial forgeries in Valera's name, created by his secret followers.  She does not comment , however, on the later 'Naples documents', which had not been brought to light when the book was written.

This review  of Domenici and Domenici's Il nodi segreti  degli incas and El silencio protagonista edited by Laurencich-Minelli and Numhauser Bar-Magen discusses possible interrelationships between Peruvian colonial chroniclers Guaman Poma de Ayala, Blas Valera, Martin de Murua, and other colonial figures.

Exsul Immeritus Blas Valera Populo Suo is one of the two Jesuit documents that make up the so-called "Miccinelli documents" which, like many other documents of the Spanish conquest, were "discovered" in archives or private collections after hundreds of years. About three decades ago, a renowned Italian researcher from the University of Bologna, presented to the world the Miccinelli documents - which reveal an unknown mode of Inca writing and contain information so sensitive that it questions the legitimacy of the conquest of Peru and of the two most revered Peruvian authors of the conquest. Despite the scholarly research studies that accompanied the disclosure of these documents, their authenticity was questioned by Peruvian academic authorities and their extraordinary content remained ignored. The divulgation of the documents was limited, since the publication of their content - which was originally written in Latin and Quechua - was only done in two editions whose print run may have been small, since they are difficult to find. The first is a 2005 Italian edition translated into Italian and Spanish, and the second is a 2009 Peruvian edition translated only into Spanish. The owner of the documents passed away in 2017 and the researcher who dedicated more than two decades to them passed away in 2018. My purpose is to contribute to the spreading abroad of the content of Exsul Immeritus, as well as to highlight two other of its particularities: the psychological processes involved in its creation, and its condition as a book-object. 

Exsul Immeritus Blas Valera Populo Suo es uno de los dos documentos jesuitas que conforman los llamados “documentos Miccinelli” los cuales, como muchos otros documentos de la conquista española, fueron “descubiertos” en archivos o colecciones privadas después de cientos de años. Hace unas tres décadas, una reconocida investigadora italiana de la Universidad de Bologna, presentó al mundo los documentos Miccinelli -que revelan un modo desconocido de escritura inca y contienen información tan sensible, que cuestiona la legitimidad de la conquista del Perú y de los dos autores peruanos de la conquista más venerados. A pesar de los estudios de investigación académica que acompañaron la divulgación de estos documentos, su autenticidad fue cuestionada por las autoridades académicas peruanas y su extraordinario contenido permaneció ignorado. La difusión de los documentos fue limitada, pues la publicación de su contenido -el cual fue escrito originalmente en latín y en quechua, sólo se realizó en dos ediciones cuyo tiraje posiblemente fue pequeño pues son difíciles de hallar. La primera es una edición italiana del año 2005 traducida al italiano y al castellano, y la segunda es una edición peruana del año 2009 traducida sólo al castellano. La dueña de los documentos falleció el año 2017 y la investigadora que dedicó a ellos más de dos décadas falleció el año 2018. Mi propósito es contribuir a la difusión del contenido de Exsul Immeritus, así como destacar otras dos de sus particularidades: los procesos psicológicos involucrados en su creación, y su condición de libro-objeto.

Among the many extraordinary claims of the Miccinelli manuscripts kept in a private collection in Naples and published in 1989 and later, one of those most urgently in need
of being closely investigated has concerned the authorship of one of the treasures of the Royal Library of Denmark: the autograph manuscript of the Nueva corónica (Ms. GKS
2232 4º). Authorship of this manuscript has traditionally been assigned, in accordance with its title page and other evidence, to the Andean Indian Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala (1560?–1616?). Yet, in spite of the flat rejection of the Miccinelli material by the vast majority of leading specialists of the history and literature of early colonial Peru (see Adorno 1998; Zuidema 2001), the Miccinelli claims continue to find adepts at large and sometimes arouse new, fruitless debates.
In 2012, however, it was revealed that a drawing included in one of the key manuscripts of the Miccinelli collection, a Contract which states that the mestizo chronicler and Jesuit Father Blas Valera was the real author of the Nueva corónica, is basically a tracing of a drawing of the Nueva corónica as reproduced from a retouched photograph in the facsimile  edition of the Nueva corónica that was published in Paris in 1936 (see Boserup and Krabbe Meyer 2012; 2015). Following up on this material proof of the presence of recent forgeries within the Miccinelli collection, the present paper discusses the
authenticity of a closely related drawing (the Chaves drawing) discovered c.1998 in the State Archives of Naples. This latter item turns out to be, in all probability, another recent tracing of a drawing of the Nueva corónica, based on the 1936 facsimile edition.
The reason for discussing the Chaves drawing so many years later is a suggestion made in 2015 by the art historian Thomas B. F. Cummins (Harvard University). According to Cummins, the Chaves drawing is an authentic creation of Guaman Poma (see Cummins 2015). It is argued, however, that Professor Cummins’s superficial examination of the drawing and his advocacy of its authenticity are closely related to a theory developed by him in 2013 together with the renowned Peruvian anthropologist Juan Ossio (Pontificia
Universidad Católica del Perú, Lima) and supported by Conservator at the Getty Museum Nancy K. Turner (2015). Their view, which is inspired by an outdated suggestion
of the historian Manuel Ballesteros (1911–2002), is that the Chaves drawing may originate from the manuscript of the long lost illustrated chronicle (1596) of Martín de Murúa (the Galvin Murúa) supposedly consisting to a large extent of illustrated folios originating from other sources.
The evidence of the Galvin Murúa itself does not, however, corroborate this view (see Adorno and Boserup 2005; 2008). Hence, as in the case of the demonstrably fake Contract,
it is argued that the Chaves drawing was produced in the late 1990s and “dropped” in the State Archives of Naples so as to be innocently “discovered” by a scholar working there, and later promoted as “external” evidence of the authenticity and historical reliability of the two main Miccinelli manuscripts. By stepping right into this trap nearly twenty years after others have been lured into it (Cantù 2001; Laurencich Minelli 2001;
2007), Cummins has taken the risk of being counted among the supporters of the Miccinelli manuscripts and of stirring up once more an international debate on the status of forged or corrupted material, which one can hope, however, will be thwarted at an early stage by the present analysis.

El maestro Luís López Ballesteros formó parte del primer grupo de jesuitas que llegó al virreinato del Perú el año 1568. La importancia de su obra, en la formación de nuevos miembros de la Compañía y en los pasos iniciales de esta en Indias,  tuvo una importancia trascendental.  Sin embargo, pocos años después de su llegada fue apresado y expulsado del Perú en una acción que provocó un gran trauma en el interior de la orden. En este artículo estudiamos  este proceso.

This book review article discusses the the work of early Spanish colonial writers Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, Martin de Murua, Blas Valera, and Don Juan de Mendoza y Luna. It mentions the Residencia of Juan Manuel de Anaya, Corregidor of Lucanas, Soras and Andamarcas, as background to Guaman Poma's writings. It evaluates documents in the possession of Clara Miccinelli that question Guaman Poma's authorship of his major work, the Nueva Chronica y Buen Gobierno. It also reviews scholarship on those documents as well as a biography of Blas Valera by Sabine Hyland.

Summary: The paper argues that the "Contract" is a modern fake (late 1990s) : its central piece, a drawing representing Pizarro a.o. conquistadors sailing to the Indies, allegedly by Guaman Poma, is merely a tracing based on the - retouched - 1936 facsimile of the Nueva corónica. Annotations supposedly in the hands of Blas Valera himself and his Jesuit colleague Gonzalo Ruíz, which match hands in other Miccinelli documents, indirectly prove their modern, forged origin, too. --- Contents: [I:] The Miccinelli Manuscripts: The biography of Blas Valera - The Miccinelli Conundrum 1995-2003 - Provenance issues - Selection of a Project - [II:] The Contract Sheet and its Symbolic Drawing: A Well-Hidden Manuscript - "The Drawing is Not a Tracing" - A Tracing After All - Identifying an Original and a Copy - The Missing Link - Select Evidence. [III:] Remaining Textual Elements on the Contract Sheet. [IV:] Conclusion. Notes. Works Cited.

El cronista jesuito, el autor de varias investigaciones históricas sobre la historia de los incas. Tenía un hermano teólogo Jerónimo Valera. También compiló un diccionario de signos tocapu, supuestamente la criptografía de los Incas. Fue co-autor del Catecismo en quechua y aymara.

This article seeks to highlight key aspects of the controversy over the authorship of the work of Inca Garcilaso de la Vega. It refers to the controversy toward the nature or scope of the appropriations made by the Cuzqueño historian of the work of the Chachapoyano Jesuit Blas Valera, but the article seeks to establish the originality of the work of Garcilaso. It concludes that Garcilaso used very broadly information provided by Valera and other authors but his work is original due to the interpretation of the historical facts and the teleological orientation prints Andean history.

n the spirit of justice Blas Valera broke all the rules—and paid with his life. Hundreds of years later, his ghost has returned to haunt the official account. But is it the truth, and will it set the record straight?

This is the story of Father Blas Valera, the child of a native Incan woman and Spanish father, caught between the ancient world of the Incas and the conquistadors of Spain. Valera, a Jesuit in sixteenth-century Peru, believed in what to his superiors was heresy: that the Incan culture, religion, and language were equal to their Christian counterparts.

As punishment for this treachery he was imprisoned, beaten, and, finally, exiled to Spain, where he died an untimely death at the hands of English pirates in 1597.

Four centuries later, this Incan chronicler had been all but forgotten, until an Italian anthropologist discovered some startling documents in a private Neapolitan collection. The documents claimed, among other things, that Valera's death had been faked by the Jesuits; that he had returned to Peru; and, intriguingly, while there had taught his followers that the Incas used a secret phonetic quipu—a record-keeping device of the Incas—to record history.

Far from settling anything, the documents created an international sensation among scholars and led to bitter disputes over how they should be assessed. Are they forgeries, authentic documents, or something in between? If genuine, they will radically reform our view of Inca culture and Valera. The author insightfully examines the evidence, showing how fact and fiction intertwine, and brings the dimly understood history of this author-priest to light.
". . . a wonderfully written study that takes the reader into the early colonial world where an Andeanised Christianity was a plausible alternative to idol-smashing ethnocide, and where it was still possible to imagine other outcomes for Peruvian society. The rise and fall of mestizo Valera's work and the tragic arc of his life humanise otherwise dry Tridentine debates over how much authorship Andeans would be granted over the religion they would publicly practice in the colonial world. . . . Hyland is to be thanked for giving us this beautifully written and moving history. A must for specialists, it is also suitable for advanced undergraduate classes."
—Itinerario
"Sixteenth-century mestizo Jesuit Blas Valera has long remained an elusive figure in colonial Andean history, but Sabine Hyland's new study of this fascinating man changes that. Her book uncovers the key events in Valera's life and spells out his ideas on native Peruvian history, religion, and language. As a result, Valera rises from the shadows and becomes a significant player in the debates on the historical conception of the Incas and evangelization strategies for the indigenous population in the sixteenth century. . . . Thanks to Sabine Hyland's book, many readers will find a new window through which to view the history of colonial Peru."
—CLAHR: Colonial Latin American Historical Review
". .. . Hyland provides insight into the life of the Jesuit scholar, indigenous historian, teacher, and religious comparativist. Part history, part detective novel, the book plunges into various controversies: Christianity and indigenous Inca religion; Jesuits and the Spanish Crown; Valera's own mixed heritage; and even Valera and the Jesuits who imprisoned and then exiled him, despite his loyalty to the order. . . . Valera takes his place among ethnographers such as Acosta and Native rights advocates such as Las Casas, and Hyland's book provides captivating access to his unique contribution to history. Highly Recommended."
—Choice
"This is a beautifully written, deeply informed and highly informative work. . . . [Hyland] has cast a bright light into a corner of early colonial Latin American scholarship that we had all but abandoned hope of ever seeing into very clearly."
—Gary Urton, Harvard University

"[A] refreshingly lucid account of an important but poorly known figure in colonial Latin American history."
—Richard L. Burger, Yale University

". . . a 'must-read' by all serious scholars of native Andean history."
—Catholic Historical Review