History of the house in Cusco: Casa de Alabado Santísimo Sacramento

An analysis of the public spaces around the house belonging to the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament (Casa de Alabado Santísimo Sacramento) was included at the beginning of this study. This was the starting point for further considerations aimed at clarifying the historical process of transformation of the property, house No. 581 on Chihuampata Street. The analysis was carried out using archival sources, i.e. notarial records recording the purchase and sale of lots and land, as well as wills and donations. A historical reconstruction of the properties was carried out using a retrospective methodology and using the book of the first census of the city of Cusco in 1862.

Behind the evidence of morphological transformation in San Blas: the Beaterio del Carmen and its contributions

Beaterio del Carmen was founded in the second half of the 17th century. Its operation was made possible by bequests and donations. Although it functioned throughout the 18th century, its greatest development occurred in the last forty years of the century, when Nicolasa de Christo became the Preposita. During her govern, not only the buildings of the beatrium itself but also the area controlled by the tertiaries expanded significantly. It even came to the closing of public streets inside the property, which ceased to be generally accessible. The presented article shows the urban transformation of the beaterium quarter, the process of attaching individual plots of land from the time of the institution’s foundation to the early 19th century and the formation of ownership of the property complex belonging to the Tertiaries was reconstructed.

The Beaterio de Nuestra Señora del Carmen in the light of an unpublished document of 1772 and the current architecture of the tertiary house

The document, dated 1772 and kept in the Archbishop’s Archives in Cusco, presents a request from María Nicolasa de Christo, preposita of the Beaterio de Nuestra Señora del Carmen, demanding that her beaterio not be converted into a chaplaincy. The tertian describes the beaterio’s institutional and economic situation. Her petition is supported by the testimonies of nine witnesses from Cusco who visited the homes and chapel of the tertian. The witnesses’ descriptions give us a picture of the architecture and decor of the Nuestra Señora del Carmen beaterium in 1772. At the time, it was one of the most important in Cusco. The document serves as a pretext to reflect on the architecture of the beaterios in Cusco and their functions in the urban structure and multi-ethnic society of Cusco. In the 17th and 18th centuries, one can observe the hierarchization of the social structure, which depended on economic status, blood purity or gender, and the beaterias were a response to the need to create a living space for single women, very often lacking sufficient economic resources to support themselves.

The image of Our Lady of the Rosary in Urubamba (Peru). History and cult

This article presents a multifaceted analysis of a painting depicting the image of Nuestra Señora del Rosario from the parish church in Urubamba. The canvas is an unusual work, especially in terms of iconography and in the context of the local rosary cult, which has a very well-established tradition. The painting itself carries a lot of information, the work tells its story through the portraits and inscriptions on it. Thanks to the analysis of the canvas, as well as archival documents, it became possible to reconstruct the context of the work’s functioning.

Canvas support, pigments, and moulding as manifestations of cultural identity: a study of the painting San Francisco distributing bread to the poor as a child (Cusco, Chile, ca. 1668–1684)

This article highlights the importance of applying material and technical studies to the pictorial heritage of Cusco, especially in situations where written accounts of the resources and creative processes involved in its production are limited. Through the analysis of samples of the physical order of the painting San Francisco distributing bread to the poor as a child, exhibited in the Museo Colonial de San Francisco in Santiago de Chile, the material iconological method was used to identify links with the European pictorial tradition and South Andean contributions and inventions. From this specific study, a way is presented by which a series of laboratory examinations focused on recognising the techniques and materials used in viceregal painting can provide valuable information about the context and society that gave them form and meaning.