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Fr. Agustín de Vetancurt: The “Via crucis en mexicano”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 March 2017

John F. Schwaller
John F. Schwaller*
Affiliation:
University at Albany (SUNY)
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Extract

The reputation of Fr. Agustín de Vetancurt, one of the better known Franciscans of colonial Mexico, derives largely from his fame as a historian. He is the author of the monumental Teatro mexicano (1698), a historical description of the most important events of colonial New Spain. Fr. Agustín was also an accomplished scholar of Nahuatl, and published several works in that language. This essay will take a preliminary look at his life and times by focusing on a small work written by him in Nahuatl. It is a guide for the ceremony of the Stations of the Cross, celebrated throughout the year but especially on Good Friday.

Type
Articles
Information
The Americas , Volume 74 , Issue 2 , April 2017 , pp. 119 - 137
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 2017 

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References

1. Vetancurt, Agustín, Teatro Mexicano, 4 vols. (Madrid: Editorial Porrua Turanzas, 1960–61), 4, 378–379 Google Scholar; Beristáin de Souza, José Mariano, Biblioteca Hispano-americana septentrional, 5 vols. (Mexico: Editorial Fuente Cultural, 1947), Vol. 1, 261–262 Google Scholar.

2. Medina, José Toribio, La imprenta en México, 5 vols. (Santiago de Chile: Imprenta Medina, 1906–1912 Google Scholar). All references are from Volumes 2 and 3.

3. “Stations of the Cross," Catholic Encyclopedia (New York: Encyclopedia Press, 1913). See also Storme, Albert, The Way of the Cross: A Historical Sketch (N.P.: Franciscan Printing Press, 1976)Google Scholar; and Zedelgem, Amedee, “Aperçu historique sur le devotion au chemin de la croix,” Collectanea franciscana 19 (1948–49): 45–142 Google Scholar.

4. Keleman, Pal, Baroque and Rococo in Latin America, 2 vols., 2nd ed. (New York: Dover Publications, 1967), Vol. 1, 50–51.Google Scholar

5. Illustrations from Gutiérrez, Federico, La Semana Santa en Sevilla (Madrid: Ed. Alpuerto, 1982)Google Scholar. Some cities have religious brotherhoods dedicated to the veneration of Jesus Nazareno de las Tres Potencias who participate in Good Friday processions.

6. McAndrew, John, The Open-Air Churches of Sixteenth-Century Mexico (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965), 249–252 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7. Illustrations are taken from Thompson, J. Eric S., Maya Hieroglyphic Writing (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1971)Google Scholar.

8. Kubler, George, Mexican Architecture of the Sixteenth Century, 2 vols. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1948), Vol. 2, 401 Google Scholar.

9. de Oviedo, Diego, Manual de los exercicios para los agravios de Christo (Puebla: Viuda de Miguel de Ortega, 1729)Google Scholar.

10. Rev. Stafford Poole, personal communication, October 2016.

11. For an example of this litany, see http://www.catholic.org/prayers/prayer.php?p=466.