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The Global Lettered City: Humanism and Empire in Colonial Latin America and the Early Modern World The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation McManus, Stuart Michael. 2016. The Global Lettered City: Humanism and Empire in Colonial Latin America and the Early Modern World. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:33493519 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA The Global Lettered City: Humanism and Empire in Colonial Latin America and the Early Modern World A dissertation presented by Stuart Michael McManus to The Department of History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the subject of History Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts April 2016 © 2016 – Stuart Michael McManus All rights reserved. Dissertation Advisors: James Hankins, Tamar Herzog Stuart Michael McManus The Global Lettered City: Humanism and Empire in Colonial Latin America and the Early Modern World Abstract Historians have long recognized the symbiotic relationship between learned culture, urban life and Iberian expansion in the creation of “Latin” America out of the ruins of pre-Columbian polities, a process described most famously by Ángel Rama in his account of the “lettered city” (ciudad letrada). This dissertation argues that this was part of a larger global process in Latin America, Iberian Asia, Spanish North Africa, British North America and Europe. It is thus a study of the “global lettered city,” known to contemporaries as the “republic of letters,” from its rapid expansion in the sixteenth century to its reordering in the Enlightenment and the Age of Revolutions with a particular focus on the function of its key scholarly-literary practice, classicizing rhetoric and oratory as revived by renaissance humanists. This dissertation is divided into five chapters. In Chapter 1, I argue that renaissance humanism and classical rhetoric played a pivotal role in shaping and diffusing the political ideology of the global Spanish Monarchy. As the centerpieces of multisensory Baroque rituals regularly celebrated in urban centers, such as Mexico City, Lima, and Manila, classicizing orations and sermons bolstered the Spanish Monarchy through appeals to Greco-Roman imperial models and Christian humanist ideas of virtue. In the same vein, in Chapter Two, I argue that iii classical rhetoric was an instrument of global spiritual conquest on the Jesuit route from Rome to Japan. This dissertation then treats some less well-known applications of humanism and the classical rhetorical tradition, cultural practices that also served to undermine or even directly oppose European imperial ambitions. In Chapter 3, I examine the role of late-humanist eloquence and erudition in the expression of a local “Mexican” identity. In Chapter 4, I show that late-humanism served to build community in Benjamin Franklin’s quarter of the “global lettered city.” Finally, in Chapter 5, I examine the role of post-humanist classicizing rhetoric in the articulation of radical political and social ideas in Age of Revolutions. In preparing this global history, I have examined primary sources in thirteen countries. iv Table of Contents The Global Lettered City: Humanism and Empire in Colonial Latin America and the Early Modern World Abstract iii Acknowledgements vi List of Illustrations and Tables viii Dedication x Introduction Stumbling Upon The Global Lettered City 1 Chapter 1 The Habsburg Quarter of the Global Lettered City 32 Chapter 2 The Jesuit Quarter of the Global Lettered City 101 Chapter 3 Contesting Identity in the Global Lettered City 150 Chapter 4 Poor Cicero’s Almanack: Continuity and Change in the Global Lettered City 190 Chapter 5 Revolution in the Global Lettered City 247 Conclusion The Archaeology of the Global Lettered City 300 Appendix 1 Festival Books for the Death of Philip IV (1605-1665) 306 Appendix 2 The Prose Rhythm of Hara Martinho, Oratio (Goa, 1588) 313 Bibliography 319 v Acknowledgements This dissertation would not have been possible without the generous help and support of numerous people scattered across multiple continents. There is not enough space here to include every person who deserves to be thanked, but I hope that in this act of praeteritio those whose names do not appear will find some measure of the recognition they deserve. In the thirteen countries that I visited in the course of my research, I relied heavily on the expertise and assistance of numerous librarians and archivists. Particular thanks go to the staff at the fondo reservado at the National Library of Mexico, and to maestro Fernando López Sánchez for his assistance in accessing the cathedral library and other libraries in Lima. Throughout my travels, I also benefitted from the company of many fellow travelers and local guides. In the great cities of the Americas, I would have been lost (often literally) without Deidre Moore in Mexico City, Ximena Gómez in Lima and Andrew Redden in Santiago de Chile. In Manila, Madrid and Seville, Jorge Mojarro showed me the way to the archives and the best local eateries. In Tokyo, Aki Watanabe and his colleagues in Japanese Association of Renaissance Studies made me feel very welcome. I also owe a heartfelt Deu borem korum and a muito obrigado to Antonio Pereira and his family who hosted me in Goa. To all those I met on my travels, I only wish that I could have tarried longer to get to know you better. Throughout my time at Harvard, I benefitted immensely from the advice and camaraderie of numerous advisors, friends and colleagues. It was Bernard Bailyn who first encouraged me to focus on Latin America, and for this I will be forever grateful. I owe the title of Chapter 4 and much else, to the late and great Mark Kishlansky (1948-2015). I was also fortunate to be surrounded by a community of enthusiastic young scholars, including my Doktorbrüder und vi -schwester, the Drs Tworek, and my good friend, Tom Keeline. Beyond Harvard, I also benefitted from the feedback of Andrew Laird, rerum Romanarum Mexicanarumque peritus, and the cartographical expertise of my favorite digital humanist, Cheryl Cape. I could not have wished for a more supportive dissertation committee, whose wisdom and editorial acuity deserve much more than this short gratiarum actio: to Jim Hankins for giving me the most complete training a historian of humanism could ask for and for the faith he has shown in me throughout the process; to Tamar Herzog for her sage advice, perceptive criticisms and advice on archives and libraries in Latin America and beyond; to Ann Blair for her unfailing support from the beginning to the end; to David Armitage for his constant encouragement to ask bigger questions; and to Peter Mack for sharing with me his deep knowledge of the classical rhetorical tradition and for advising me so closely at such a distance. During my time “abroad” I benefitted from the financial support of many organizations, whose important role I wish to recognize here. At Harvard, I was the beneficiary of funds from the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, the Harvard Asia Center, the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies and the Harvard Center for American Political Studies. My research year was funded by a Social Science Research Council’s International Dissertation Research Fellowship with funds provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and a Mellon Fellowships for Dissertation Research in Original Sources administered by the Council on Library and Information Resources. Throughout the process, Janine was and always will be my sine qua non. It is to my parents, however, that I owe the greatest debt. Cambridge MA April 2016 vii List of Illustrations and Tables Figure 1: The Biblioteca Palafoxiana, Puebla, Mexico Figure 2: Research Locations, 2014-2015 Figure 3: The Spanish Monarchy of Philip IV (1605-1665) studied in Chapter 1 Figure 4: Route of the Tenshō Embassy, 1582-1590 studied in Chapter 2 Figure 5: The locations of the Biblioteca Mexicana controversy studied in Chapter 3 Figure 6: Late-humanist works from the “hyper-Atlantic” studied in Chapter 4 Figure 7: Revolutionary orations studied in Chapter 5 Figure 8: Locations of surviving orations performed in the Americas for the death of Philip IV Figure 9: Locations of surviving orations performed in Europe for the death of Philip IV Figure 10: Túmulo constructed in Lima Cathedral Figure 11: Túmulo constructed in Mexico City Cathedral (Llanto del occidente en el ocaso del más claro sol de las Españas: Fúnebres demonstraciones que hizo pyra real, que erigió en las exequias del Rey N. Señor D. Felipe IIII el grande (Mexico City, 1666)) Figure 12: Francis Williams (1700-1771), schoolmaster and Latin poet Figure 13: St. John Honeywood’s presentation copy of his college oration, 1782 Figure 14: Paul Revere, The Bloody Massacre (Boston, 1770) Figure 15: Holden Chapel Figure 16: Old South Meeting House Table 1: Structure of Latin oration in Mexico City cathedral by Nicholás del Puerto (Llanto del occidente, fols 113r-132v) Table 2: Structure of the sermon delivered in Mexico City Cathedral by Juan de Poblete (Llanto del occidente, fols 135r-150r) viii Table 3: Structure of the Castilian funeral oration delivered in Tlaxcala by Francisco de Linares Urdanivia (Oración fúnebre […] en las Exequias que celebró a la Sacra y Real Magestad de nuestro Catholico Rey y Señor D. Felipe IV. El Grande (Mexico City, 1667)) Table 4: Structure of James Lovell, An Oration Delivered April 2d, 1771 at the Request of the Inhabitants of the Town of Boston to Commemorate the Bloody Tragedy of the Fifth of March, 1770 (Boston, 1771) Table 5: Structure of Basilio Sancho de Santa Justa y Rufina, Alocución que en el día veinte de Enero del año mil setecientos ochenta y tres, cumpleaños del nuestro Señor D.