Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

Between 1638 and 1680, the Jesuit missions of the province of Maynas, located in the current territories of the Peruvian and Ecuadorian Amazon, were established and con-solidated for the first time. As a frontier territory, where the political control exercised by the Royal Court of Quito was limited, the work carried out by the Society of Jesus was developed through different aspects, such as the spiritual administration of the Amazonian Indians, the configuration of urban settlements adapted to the geographical conditions, the relative containment against the advance of the Portuguese invasion, among others. This article seeks to analyze, broadly speaking, the first moments of consolidation of this missionary system, tak-ing into account different political and ecclesiastical factors. In order to achieve this goal, we have decided to structure the work on the basis of the following sections: the process of colonization of the Spanish Marañón territory, the formation of the first Jesuit reductions, the main characteristics of the missionary methodology and the rhetorical discourse that ex-plained the survival of idolatry and superstition among the local societies.

After de arrival of the Jesuits to what is today the Mexican Northwest in the 16th and 17th centuries, a process of cultural exchange began between the missionaries and diverse indigenous groups that inhabited the region; this process encompassed from crafts and rituals to artistic manifestations. This article aims to make a comparative study between the aesthetic conceptions of the Tarahumaran groups and the Jesuit missionaries as they could have been experienced up until the expulsion of the Company of Jesus from the New Spain and make a sketch of its impact on the contemporary musical practices of the rarámuri people.

When it was decided to construct a building separate from the block of the University of St. Ignatius, the project for the Jesuit novitiate was commissioned to the master architect Jan Kraus in 1700. It was never fully completed due to differences between the provincial and the general of the Society of Jesus. It still served its function between 1700 and 1725. But then the building was used as a retreat house until the expulsion in 1767. Coincidentally, the crypt of its unfinished church, forgotten and rediscovered in 1989, after more than half a century of being hidden under an avenue, came to our time. We contribute with this work some unknown historical references such as its archaeological discovery and architectural recovery.

There are plenty of publications about Juan María de Salvatierra mainly regarding his work as the founder of the missions in California, as well as a missionary in the Sierra Tarahumara. However, very little has been published on other aspects of his life in the Novohispanic territory: his rectory at Guadalajara School, his work as rector and teacher of novices in the old Tepotzotlán School and his role as the Provincial of the Society of Jesus in New Spain. In this article we will try to focus on his way through the city of Guadalajara, which corresponds to three years of his fruitful life and that, as we will see, left an important mark in the region.

In 1767, King Carlos III ordered the expulsion of the Jesuits from all Spanish territory. The total number of Jesuits in Spanish America was perhaps as many as 2,600. Despite the small numbers, the Jesuits played an important role in colonial society. They were important in the education of the children of the urban elite, and in the spiritual life of the residents of the cities. They also staffed frontier missions. This article offers an overview to the Jesuit institutions in two provinces, Peru and Paracuaria, both located in South America, in 1767.

We will briefly approach the prosopography of the 28 Jesuits born in the Diocese of Astorga, who were expelled between 1767 and 1770 from their European and overseas domains. We will outline his training, jobs within the Company and adventures in Italian exile. We will focus especially on the eight Astorgan missionaries who evangelized in America and the four (one German and three Mexicans) who were imprisoned in convents of the bishopric of Astorga, as hostages of Carlos III.

Thanks to a model of prayer in the Spiritual Exercises inspired by the imagination of gospel scenes, the Society of Jesus developed a religious culture linked to the image. Its use was the way the Jesuits represented themselves, clarifying the meaning of their mission and identity. Thus, its Colleges and churches were the spaces used for a self-representation that reflects, in different parts of the world, a homogeneous four-dimensional iconographic program: a. the variety of ministries of the word, b. the global apostolic character, c. the institutional propaganda through the image of martyrdom and d. the adaptation of its members to local cultures, in a special way, together with the elites. These elements can be clearly seen in the iconographic program of the Templo del Colegio de la Transfiguración del Cusco, Perú.

Reseña bibliográfica de Carlos Hugo A. Zayas González del libro de Stuart M. McManus, Empire of Eloquence. The Classical Rhetorical Tradition in Colonial Latin America and the Iberian World. Ideas in context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 300 pp. ISBN 978-1-83016-4.

This paper focuses on the analysis of a Jesuit source that remained unpublished until this transcription. It is the partial anua letter of 1621 of the reduction of Encarnación de Itapúa written by Fr. Diego de Boroa to the provincial Pedro de Oñate. The transcription is accompanied by a first analysis that seeks to clarify the dating of the transfer of the main settlement of the said reduction from the left bank of the Paraná River to the right bank where it was to become its definitive settlement. In addition, other events reported in the document, such as plagues, famines, and missionary ventures to the Iaña, Iguazú and Guairá, are also described.

Nicolás del Techo left Europe for good in 1640 and went to Paraguay, where he was a missionary until his death in 1685. In his new land, he wrote a history of the Jesuit Province of Paraguay named Historia Provinciae Paraquariae Societatis Iesu, which is the oldest that exists. The Historia was finally printed in Liège in 1673. Throughout his life, Nicolás del Techo wrote at times texts, including the Historia of letters, and at times inspired people to write biographies. All these documents, now preserved in several European and Latin American countries, allow us to retrace the thread of his intercontinental life and to situate the writing of the Historia in Paraguay between 1658 and 1673. The aim of this paper is to understand why and how del Techo, a field man, became a man of letters in a specific environment surrounded by the reductions.