Ian Ehling
Head of Department
Lot 30
THE PERUVIAN INQUISITION. Manuscript in Spanish, on paper, Titulos de las casas que compro el Senor Juan Osorio en Virtud de Sentencia del Tribunal de la Sancta Crusada que solia ser de Melchior de Palma e Ysabel Benavento su muger,
11 December 2020, 10:00 EST
New YorkSold for US$2,295 inc. premium
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THE PERUVIAN INQUISITION.
Manuscript in Spanish, on paper, Titulos de las casas que compro el Senor Juan Osorio en Virtud de Sentencia del Tribunal de la Sancta Crusada que solia ser de Melchior de Palma e Ysabel Benavento su muger, recording documents relating to and detailing the properties and possessions of Melchior de Palma and his wife Ysabel Benavento, later to become the property of the Tribunal de la Santa Cruzada (The Inquisition), folio (310 x190 mm), 213 leaves including the final blank, the principal text leaves paginated 1-210 (repaginated 765-976), written in a uniform neat secretarial hand, Lima, Peru, 20 May 1608, some light browning and staining mostly to the margins, two wormholes affecting the later leaves. Modern calf-backed marbled boards.
A fine document listing the properties and possessions of Melchior de Palma and his wife, including details of her dowry, the history of property sales and transfers, and the auctioning off of expropriated property that had once belonged to Palma and Benevento, and were now in the possession of Juan Osorio, for the Inquisition. Osorio rose from head valet (camerero) to the High Steward of the Viceroyalty of Peru, to become a judge on the Inquisition Court. The Inquisition came to Peru in 1568, and was established in the capital Lima, from where they hunted down heretics and other non-Catholics, particularly Jews, as seems to be the case here. Melchior was likely a merchant whose success caught the eye of the Tribunal. As in Spain, the Inquisition were keen to destroy heretical books, and in 1605 ordered booksellers in Lima to present lists of their books, which were analyzed by outside censors, and the heretical books destroyed.
A fine document listing the properties and possessions of Melchior de Palma and his wife, including details of her dowry, the history of property sales and transfers, and the auctioning off of expropriated property that had once belonged to Palma and Benevento, and were now in the possession of Juan Osorio, for the Inquisition. Osorio rose from head valet (camerero) to the High Steward of the Viceroyalty of Peru, to become a judge on the Inquisition Court. The Inquisition came to Peru in 1568, and was established in the capital Lima, from where they hunted down heretics and other non-Catholics, particularly Jews, as seems to be the case here. Melchior was likely a merchant whose success caught the eye of the Tribunal. As in Spain, the Inquisition were keen to destroy heretical books, and in 1605 ordered booksellers in Lima to present lists of their books, which were analyzed by outside censors, and the heretical books destroyed.