Notes on Latin American Renaissance Humanities Characteristics
1500 – 1600

I. General

In general Latin American culture and humanities revolve predominantly around Spanish influence rather than French, Portuguese, and indigenous influences. The reason for such a difference corresponds directly to Spain ascendancy during the first century of European discovery, conquest, settlement, and colonization. Clearly, during the first century, indigenous cultures were shocked into submission to the newcomers, and some pre-Columbian peoples disappeared completely. This human disaster is particularly true in the Caribbean. Although the French engaged in voyages of discovery during the sixteenth century, their attempts at colonization failed. The moderate French influence in Latin America in the Renaissance period has to do mainly with their constant attacks on coastal towns and the Spanish treasure fleets. Québec City was not founded by the French until 1608. Meanwhile Portugal founded the cities of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro in Brazil in mid-century, but Portuguese Latin America did not develop significantly until the next century. Spanish civilization during the sixteenth century, therefore, is so prominent and dominant that it is called the Golden Age (el Siglo de Oro) both because of the exploitation of precious metals—notably silver and gold—originating in Latin America, but also because of the sophistication of Spanish arts and letters. What is true about peninsular Spain is also true in Spanish America.

Like all other European and Asian countries that made a transition out of medieval patterns characteriestic of the Middle Ages, Spain, France, and Portugal did so too. Three of the major traits of medieval society are (1) hierarchical social structures, (2) religion-centered lifestyles and beliefs, and (3) non-individualistic pursuits. As these countries evolved into the Renaissance, these three traits evolve too. First there is a growing split between secular and religious powers, and the hegemony of the Roman Catholic Church is splintered by the Protestant Reformation that began in 1517 in Germany. Second, as the word "renaissance" itself suggests, there was a powerful rebirth of classical, human-centered knowledge and productions in the arts and sciences. In other words, knowledge began to be democratized, especially as the printing press made access to knowledge open to a much larger segment of society. And third, individuals began to assert their private right to seek and achieve personal glory and fame in the here and now. Glory was no longer reserved for the after life.

Some general tendencies one finds in Spanish American humanities include the following: (1) The cities and towns that were created near the coasts (architecture, urban planning) displayed very Iberian (Spanish and Portuguese) features. Such cities include Santo Domingo, La Habana, Veracruz, Pernambuco, Bahia, Concepción, and Lima. On the other hand, inland cities and towns had more mestizo characteristics. (Mestizo refers to a mixture of European and indigenous styles and peoples.) Exception to this general difference in city styles are Puebla and Morelia in México and Quito in Ecuador, all three of which show predominantly Spanish—rather than mestizo—styles in their historical cores (casco histórico). (2) As one would expect, significant art and culture developed near major mining centers such as Zacatecas, Guanajuato, and Taxco in México, Potosí in Bolivia, and Ouro Preto in Brazil. (3) Furthermore, European influence in Latin America during the first century the encounter showed strong signs of varying by regions. For example, explorers, conquistadors, and colonists in México tended to come from Extremadura and Castilla in Spain; Cuba was influenced by people from Galicia in northwest Spain; Venezuela by immigrants from the Spanish Basque region (el País Vasco); Brazil by the Portuguese; and Québec by the French. For a hand-drawn map of some of Latin America's early European cities, see the following map:

II. Early Renaissance Characteristics

As you can see in the image link just above and another one near the bottom of these notes about Latin American humanities in the Renaissance, the production of maps is one of the most prominent concerns for explorers, conquistadors, colonists, and sailors. It is also one of the most significant products of the entire Colonial period. The most famous of these maps is the one produced by Juan de la Cosa (1460-1510), who was a cartographer, conquistador, explorer, and owner of one of Columbus's three ships, the famous Santa María. He sailed with Columbus on the latter's first three voyages. On Juan de la Cosa's own fourth voyage in 1499 (not with Columbus) he was accompanied by Amerigo Vespucci. The entire continent of the Western Hemisphere came to be known by Vespucci's first name (Amerigo -> America). On Juan de la Cosa's fifth voyage (1500) he joined others in exploring ("discovering") Colombia and the eastern coast of Panamá. In the same year (1500) he produced the first map of the region of the so-called new New World that was most explored. The original of this map is in the Naval Museum in Madrid, Spain. For an enlargement of this map see the poster (sold at the Naval Museum) of it shown in class and/or click on the following image:

Spanish history and humanities in the sixteenth century can be divided roughly along the lines of the three monarchs that ruled throughout the century. First, the Catholic Monarchs (los Reyes Católicos) ruled until 1516 (Queen Isabel I died in 1504, her son Felipe el Hermoso died in 1506, and King Fernando V died in 1516). Carlos I (as king of Spain; V as emperor of the Holy Roman Empire) ruled from 1517 to 1556, and his son Felipe II ruled from 1556 to 1598. The period of the Catholic Monarchs is dominated by the discovery and early conquests. The predominant products of the humanities are letters, maps, and portolans concerning the discoveries. The most characteristic style is known as plateresco, which is characteristic of the fine work done by silver smiths. There is the slightest trace of this style in the façades of the earliest churches built during the early Renaissance period; however, the conquest was so new and so much energy was spent on other activities such as war and survival that little remains of this style in Latin America. The oldest major building in Latin America is the Catedral de Santo Domingo (1516). This cathedral shows an exuberant mixture of styles, including plateresque, Renaissance, and native elements. For a picture of Santo Domingo's cathedral, click on the following image:

III. The Reign of Carlos I (V) (1500 – 1558)

Carlos I was the first king in the line of Hapsburg monarchs in Spain (1517-1700). Almost as soon as he became king of Spain he was elected emperor (1519) of the Holy Roman Empire (Sacro Imperio Romano Germánico), he was crowned as Karl V (Carlos V / Charles V).

The period of Carlos V shows the following characteristics: freedom and syncretism in church architecture and sculpture. In Spanish America the craftsmen and artisans were mostly mestizos and indigenous people, whereas in Brazil they were blacks and mulattoes (mixture of African and Portuguese peoples). Even though the overall designs of buildings, sculptures, and art were Iberian, since those who actually created the works were not Iberians, in Latin America we find that antithetical styles existed simultaneously. Furthermore, practical and local needs (i.e., tropical heat, earthquakes, hurricanes, etc.) meant that we see a pre-Columbian ornamental structural sense. Walls are thicker than in Europe and buildings have more ventilation. Even so, European ideas in the humanities predominate: in the main they are aristocratic, noble, and oriented toward pomp. (Later, in the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries, the humanities will be based more on the masses than one sees in Iberia. The humanities, therefore, in the later colonial centuries, are more democratic than they are in Europe. This difference was due to the need to proselytize the indigenous parishioners in the Catholic churches and missions.) The first school of the arts in Latin America was set up in Quito, Ecuador, in 1534, to foster religious instruction for the Ecuadorian Incas. The earliest modifications in Iberian styles took place in México. These motifications included the design and construction of fortress churches (see the Catedral de Mérida); grandiose, syncretic Gothic architecture; small scale plateresque church façades (see: => San Agustín Acolman), capillas abiertas (open chapels, which are courtyards for the large mass populations in México: see both Acolman and the Catedral de Cuernavaca, for example), and very large monasteries begun by Mexico's first viceroy (Antonio Hurtado de Mendoza, 1535 – 1550), which was built around a cloister and was two stories high.

Mendoza was the first viceroy of México and the third viceroy of Perú (1551 – 1552), where he died and was buried. He authorized the expeditions of Francisco Vásquez de Coronado throughout what is now much of the Southwest of the United States of America (1540 – 1542), Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo to the west coast of California (1542 – 1543), and Ruy López Zumárraga to the Philippeans (1542 – 1543). As the great humanist that he was, and of special interest concerning the encounter with native humanities, he commissioned the creation of an Aztec codex, which is known as the Codex Mendoza. In 1536 he joined forces with the bishop (Juan de Zumárraga) in founding the Colegio de Santa Cruz at Tlatelolco (the famous Plaza de las Tres Culturas in the Tlatelolco neighborhood in Mexico City), which was an institution where sons of the remaining Aztec nobility studied Latin humanities subjects such as Latin, philosophy, and music. He introduced the first printing press in the New World in 1539, and he oversaw the construction of hospitals, schools, ranches, and mines. Also, he began the process for creating the first two universities in the New World: the Universidad de San Marcos in Lima, Perú (1551) and the Royal and Pontificial University of Mexico (1552), which became the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM).

IV. Renaissance During the reign of Felipe II (1556 – 1598)

It is important to take into consideration that during the period of these three monarchies (Catholic Monarchs, Carlos V, Felipe II), Spain expanded from controlling only about half of the Iberian Peninsula to: (1) the entire Iberian Peninsula; (2) islands in the Atlantic Ocean; (3) enclaves on the north coast of Africa, (4) claims to almost all of the Western Hemisphere (except for what Portugal on the tip of Brazil); (5) islands throughout the Pacific Ocean including the Philippeans; (6) and immense Hapsburg territories throughout Europe. Here is a rough map of just some of Spanish imperial control in western Europe alone:

Due to the stern tastes and stern Catholic theology of King Felipe II, the Renaissance was elegant, proportional, relatively simple or spare, and doctrinally correct. Painting, for example, could only be imported from Europe. However, sculpture was freer due to the need to use indigenous craftsmen and artisans. For example, one sees a profusion of indigenous relief decoration with native animals, plants, and colors. Church architecture shows friezes with Aztec virgins, local fruit, flowers, fauna, and native physiognomies. The Catedral Metropolitana de México in Mexico City is a prime example of the Spanish approach to the humanities during the second half of the sixteenth century. Construction of this cathedral was begun in 1563, the same year as Felipe II moved the Spanish capital to Madrid and started construction of the Escorial, which is Spain's rough equivalent of the Versailles palace in France. The Catedral de México is characterized by majestic sweep and monumental Renaissance architecture. It has a special foundation due to the swampy ground where it stands (modern engineers reconstructed its foundations in order to save it early in the twenty-first century). This monumental building, which was built using the razed building blocks of the Aztec's Great Pyramid, has more light than comparable Spanish churches. Furthermore, it was built over several centuries. Hence, it has a baroque façade and a neoclassical eighteenth-century dome.

Another significant Latin American institution that illustrates the Renaissance traits characteristics of the second half of the sixteenth century is the Convento de Santa Catalina in Arequipa, Perú. It is important to remember that Spaniards from all social classes, from the king to the common devout citizen, took the defense of strict Catholicism very seriously. Felipe II and Spanish theologians, for example, took a strong lead in defending Catholic orthodoxy during the Council of Trent at the same time that they sought to reform Catholic abuses from within the Church. Protestants, of course, sought reform outside the power of the Papacy in Rome. This Catholic defense took place strongest within the borders of Spain itself, of course. But it also extended to Western Europe, the frontiers of the Christian world in north Africa and the Middle East, and it extended equally to all of its overseas possession. Spain fought in religious and military terms, for instance, to exclude Protestants from settling in their territories. One prominent example of this dual fight was the Spanish battles against French Protestants in and around San Agustín (St. Augustine), Florida, in 1565. Hence, evangelization of non-Christian peoples was a priority of the entire project of colonization, and it included construction of large and well-endowed churches, cathedrals, monasteries, and convents. For a tour of the Convento de Santa Catalina in Arequipa, click on the following image:

As you have seen in the discussion above, perhaps the major field of the humanities that was developed in Latin America during the three Spanish monarchies that dominated the 16^th century was architecture. Building churches, convents, and monasteries was a central mission and organizational principle of the Spanish and Portuguese conquerors and colonizers. In addition, however, various types of literature are also prominent. Letters, chronicles, histories, religious tracts, and various other kinds of reports dominate Latin American literary production during this century. Notable among these writers are Columbus, Cortés, and Bernal Díaz del Castillo. Others worthy of note are Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, Bernardino de Sahagún, José de Acosta, and Alonso de Ercilla. Cabeza de Vaca (1490-ca. 1557) is notable for as being an explorer and a "protoanthropological" wanderer/author, who was one of the officers of the disastrous Narváez expedition to conquer La Florida (1528). Cabeza de Vaca was one of four survivors of the original party of 300 men. The others were Alonso del Castillo Maldonado, Andrés Dorantes de Carranza, and a Moorish or Berber slave named Esteban or Estebanico. After escaping from the Gulf Coast with their lives, in an eight-year period of wandering on foot, these four men explored what are now states in Northern Mexico and Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona in the U.S.A. Later, Cabeza de Vaca became governor of Río de la Plata in South America (Paraguay and Argentina). His most remarkable book is the Naufragios (1555), which is is available on a free .pdf on-line download at; => http://www.e-libro.net/E-libro-viejo/gratis/naufragios.pdf.)

Bernardino de Sahagún (1499-1590) was a Franciscan friar who wrote a number of books in both Náhuatl and Spanish in which he reconstructed the pre-Columbian language, customs, religions, and history of Mexico. José de Acosta (1539-1600) was a Jesuit missionary and naturalist whose major work is the Historia natural y moral de las Indias (Natural and Moral History of the indies, 1590). His focus was on the flora, fauna, an anthropology of Perú.

The literary work of most enduring aesthetic value is La Araucana (1568-1589; The Araucaniad) by Alonso de Ercilla (1533-1594). (La Araucana is available on a free .pdf on-line download at: => http://es.wikisource.org/wiki/La_Araucana.) This work is a lengthy epic poem like many other such Renaissance European poems of the 16^th century or others like ancient Homer's Trojan war epic The Iliad. Ercilla's poem, which is written in exquisite Spanish Renaissance style, chronicles the battles (1544-1567) between Spanish conquistadors (Pedro de Valdivia and others) in Chile and the fierce resistance by native Araucanian warriors, who were led by the Mapuche leaders Caupolicán and Lautaro.