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The past is never dead. It's not even past

Not Even Past

Jerónimo Antonio Gil and the Idea of the Spanish Enlightenment, By Kelly Donahue-Wallace (2017)

By Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra

How can the life of an artisan who specialized in punchcutting and engraving help us shed light on “the idea of the Spanish Enlightenment”? Donahue-Wallace offers an illuminating perspective on the Enlightenment through the biography of an expert medal caster, Jerónimo Antonio Gil, whose career took him from provincial Zamora to Madrid and ultimately to Mexico, where he became the founder of the first royal academy of the arts in the New World.

Had Gil lived in the seventeenth century he would have become a painter, churning out religious canvasses in his native Zamora. Had Gil moved to Madrid, he would have become a criado (servant) for a stonecutter or a wood carver or an oil painter, never an artisan letrado (intellectual). When Gil left Zamora in the 1740s, however, he got a stipend to attend the new Academia de San Fernando in Madrid where he learned to cast dies for commemorative medals, to cut letter punches and counterpunches for typesetting, and to carve copper plates for engravings. He was also trained to master a literary and historical national canon in the vernacular. Gil got an education to copy the great masters but also to produce his own original designs in neoclassical style. In short, Gil was educated to become a civil servant, one of many officials in the Bourbon dynasty charged with creating a new specialized national print culture and regalist media. Donahue-Wallace explores the many medals, engravings, drawings, and typographic samples Gil produced in a career that spanned more than fifty years, twenty of which in Mexico.

Letter punches for the Royal Print. Jerónimo Antonio Gil, from Catálogo de la exposición Imprenta Real. Fuentes de la tipografía española. Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando (Public Domain).

Donahue-Wallace uses Gil’s career to make several larger arguments. First, she demonstrates the newfound importance of print culture in mid-eighteenth-century Spain. An ancien regime that had long been centered on literacy and the pushing of paperwork suddenly realized that modernization, renewal, and geopolitical survival demanded a turn to print as reason-of-state. The Bourbon invested heavily in the training of artisans (either at home or overseas) to eliminate Spain’s secular dependency on the expertise of typographers and engravers from France and the Low Countries. The new culture of print pushed a “national” and regalist project via the promotion of historical, religious, scientific, and literary texts. Gil, for example, carved and designed many copperplates to illustrate collections of national architectural monuments, antiquities, and coins as well as to illustrate books of anatomy, engineering, religion, and literature (including editions of El Quijote and the Bible). Gil also designed dozens of commemorative medals and coins to celebrate the lives of monarchs as well as the myriad institutions these monarchs had created. Coins were not only currency but also non-ephemeral media to circulate like engravings.

Don Quixote knighted by the innkeeper at the inn. Jerónimo Antonio Gil design and engraving. Don Quijote (Ibarra, Madrid, 1780), via author.

Second, Donahue-Wallace shows that in the second half of the eighteenth century poor provincials could accumulate wealth, honor, and political power as artisans. Donahue-Wallace offers the biography of a metal caster, cutter, and engraver whose status did not come from originality and genius. Gil nevertheless became prestigious enough to direct a national art academy and wealthy enough to amass one of the largest private collections of paintings, books, scientific apparatus, and curiosities in late-eighteenth-century New Spain. A poor Zamorano punchcutter rose through the ranks of the state bureaucracy to achieve nobility and wealth.

Third, Donahue-Wallace suggests that there was greater room for pedagogical innovation in Mexico than in Madrid. Donahue-Wallace follows Gil both as a student of the Academia de San Fernando in Madrid and as the founder and director of the Academia de San Carlos in Mexico. Both academies were named after the monarchs that decreed their creation (Ferdinand VI and his half-brother Charles III, respectively). San Fernando operated both as a public school to train painters, sculptors, architects, and engravers and as the recruiting space of apprentices for professors. The young Gil received a public education in the evenings at San Fernando, where teachers checked his drawing skills before live models, casts, or prints. During the day, however, Gil went to the household of the school’s leading printer-medal caster. Gil worked for almost a decade as the criado of Tomas Francisco Prieto, one of the teachers of San Fernando. To declare independence from Prieto, the master patriarch, Gil had to create an alternate network of patrons. When Gil went to Mexico to lead the Academy of San Carlos, he deliberately eliminated the master-criado traditions of San Fernando. Going against the authority of the professors of architecture, painting, sculpture, and engraving, Gil created in Mexico an academy in which masters could not recruit students as apprentices. Gil engaged in a twenty-year long battle, until his death, with second-tier Spanish artists who saw themselves entitled to use the academy to get pliant, skilled labor. Gil created an academy of art in Mexico in which teachers received large enough salaries to be expected to be full-time professors, not freelance agents in search of apprentices and commissions.

Façade of the original Academy of San Carlos (built as a new school to train minters in the 1780s). Today it is the Museo Nacional de las Culturas (via author).

 

Fourth, Donahue-Wallace shows that Enlightenment modernity emerged organically out of the institutions of the ancien regime; it was not an outside competing force. The idea of a public sphere of circulating prints, for example, was a Bourbon strategic initiative. Artisans relied on the good will of patrons for employment, commissions, and success, not bourgeois anonymous market forces.  Finally, those struggling to liberate the youth from the clutches of master-apprentice guilds behave like old-fashioned patriarchs themselves. Donahue-Wallace demonstrates that, for all the novelty of his pedagogy, Gil remained embedded in the patriarchal values of the ancien regime. Gil arrived in Mexico with the blueprints to build a mint school right next to the stables of the viceregal palace. He also arrived with an entourage of four students, two of whom were his own children. The original school immediately transmuted into the Art School of San Carlos, to train not only printers but also sculptors, painters, and architects. San Carlos went up as two-story elongated rectangular building, one-half of which was occupied by horse stalls and storage rooms for food, forage, and wood. The upper quarter was Gil’s residency, which included salons and cabinets for San Carlos’ official acts. The lower quarter held the school’s workshops and tool rooms. It also included four tiny rooms for criados. Gil kept his sons and assistants tied to his patriarchal control for some twenty years. For these four “students,” the Academy became a boarding school. As Gil’s criados they were not allowed to set up their own households.

Miguel Costansó, Plano y projecto de una nueva oficina para la talla y troqueles de la Real Casa de Moneda, 1779 (Archivo General de Indias,MP-MEXICO,770 – 1)

Donahue-Wallace has written an important text on the relationship between artisans and the Spanish Enlightenment on both shores of the Atlantic. The book follows Gil and his artifacts in painstaking detail and offers a wide panorama of an ancien regime struggling to catch up while unwittingly devouring itself.

Kelly Donahue-Wallace, Jerónimo Antonio Gil and the Idea of the Spanish Enlightenment (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2017).


Also by Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra on Not Even Past:

Magical Realism on Drugs: Colombian History in Netflix’s Narcos
Seeds of Empire, By Andrew Torget (2015)
Whose Classical Traditions?

Corpses, Canoes and Catastrophes: An 18th-Century Priest’s Resume

By Susan Zakaib

Sometime in 1737, a Catholic priest climbed into a canoe to save his parishioners’ souls.

The cleric in question, Bernardino Pablo López de Escovedo, was a humble vicario—a parish priest’s assistant—working in a parish called Xaltocan, north of Mexico City. Xaltocan’s head priest had fallen ill and abandoned his post, leaving López de Escovedo to handle the parish on his own.

The timing could not have been worse. A horrific epidemic—which would kill about 200,000 people by 1739—was devastating central Mexico, and by 1737 it had reached Xaltocan. As the area’s sole remaining cleric, López de Escovedo’s priority was to conduct confession for all his sick parishioners before they died. The task was not an easy one: so many died so rapidly that López de Escovedo had trouble keeping up. He became so busy giving last rites that, “three days of the week, he could not eat more than a mug of chocolate, from the… time when he went out—two in the morning—until he got back at eleven or twelve the next night…”

During his long working hours, López de Escovedo was surrounded by death. According to his account, his indigenous parishioners were afraid to touch the corpses of their brethren, and often refused to bring him the bodies of the dead. To ease their fears, “although dressed in a cloak and surplice, he lifted the dead with his own hands, placing them in the casket,” so that they could be buried. At other times, López de Escovedo brought the ill together so he could deliver last rites for all of them at the same time. To ensure that parishioners did not overhear one another during this private ritual, the priest “was obliged to use his sash to cover his face and that of the sick person, suffering the intolerable smell and sweat that they left imprinted upon his face…”

The Virgin of Guadalupe watches over the dead during the epidemic, which contemporaries referred to as “Matlazahuatl.” Fontispiece from Cayetano Cabrera y Quintero’s Escudo de Armas de México, 1746.

The Virgin of Guadalupe watches over the dead during the epidemic, which contemporaries referred to as “Matlazahuatl.” Fontispiece from Cayetano Cabrera y Quintero’s Escudo de Armas de México, 1746.

The epidemic soon reached a small island, which lay in the midst of the now-defunct Lake Xaltocan. In a little chalupa (a type of canoe), López de Escovedo and a sacristan (church caretaker) traversed the lake’s choppy waters to conduct confession for the island’s sick and dying. The stormy lake proved too much for the small boat: during the hour-and-a-half-long journey, “the waves came up with such ferocity that the boat was about to sink…” The sacristan “went along draining the canoe with his hat unceasingly,” and managed to keep them more or less afloat. Meanwhile, López de Escovedo found himself submerged in water, holding up the consecrated host in hopes of keeping it dry. Finally, they arrived at island and, “by the divine and immense piety of the Lord, even with all these dangers and discomforts… not one sick person died without having first received the Sacraments of Penance and Last Rites.” Many perished on that small island, but thanks to López de Escovedo’s dedication, every soul was prepared to enter the next life.

This story is remarkable in its detail and dramatic flair. Yet its source is not a novel or a historical opus; rather, it is part of López de Escovedo’s resume.

Given that the purpose of López de Escovedo’s resume was to impress his superiors, we can’t know for sure whether his tale is true. In colonial Mexico, priests who sought a benefice (paid jurisdiction over a parish) submitted méritos—lengthy resumes of anywhere from 3-10 pages–to a committee of ecclesiastical examiners. Priests used their méritos to state their qualifications and explain to these committees why they should receive a parish post. López de Escovedo may well have embellished his tale to portray himself as a hero; perhaps his parishioners saw his deeds in Xaltocan differently.

Regardless of their authenticity, stories like this one were common in the resumes of colonial-era priests. Most clerics used their méritos to state who their parents were, describe their educational background and academic accomplishments, list their previous parish experience, and note their accomplishments during past assignments. Like López de Escovedo, many also included stories about their experiences on the job. While most of these narratives were less hyperbolic than López de Escovedo’s, they tended to share similar characteristics: they highlighted the suffering these men had endured as parish priests, and their perseverance in the face of adversity.

While to modern readers the inclusion of such melodramatic episodes might seem counterintuitive, this was a sensible tactic in the context of the 18th-century Mexican Church. Most priests in central Mexico during this period owned a copy of the Itinerario para parochos de indios, a manual for priests’ duties written by Alonso de la Peña Montenegro, bishop of Quito, and first published in 1668. Montenegro quoted the decrees of the Council of Trent—another book that priests frequently carried with them—which stated that the duties of a parish priest were “such a laborious burden that the shoulders of angels were afraid to carry it.” He argued that shouldering this burden was a Christ-like act, since serving as a parish priest was “so difficult and overwhelming that Jesus Christ himself felt its incomparable weight” when he served as the pastor and guardian of disciples who he knew would betray him. Having learned from Montenegro that their hard work and sacrifices made them Christlike, many priests must have felt that the difficulty of administering parishes was what made the job worthwhile.

The Council of Trent meeting in Santa Maria Maggiore church, Trento (Trent). (Artist unknown; painted late 17th century). Via Wikipedia

The Council of Trent meeting in Santa Maria Maggiore church, Trento (Trent). (Artist unknown; painted late 17th century). Via Wikipedia.

However, not all clerics included stories of pain and perseverance in their méritos. By far, clergymen who were relatively poor and undereducated were most likely to take this approach. Priests who were wealthy and very well-educated had plenty to boast about without resorting to dramatic tales: they could list their extensive academic achievements, mention the important people they knew, and describe the expensive gifts they had lavished upon their parish churches. Dr. Joseph Francisco Vásquez de Cabrera, who applied for a benefice in 1709, was one such cleric. Dr. Vásquez wrote in his méritos that he had not bothered to list his accomplishments in university, since he had always been at the top of his classes. Nevertheless, he spent pages painstakingly noting every examination, thesis defense, and public debate that he had completed during the course of his studies. He also stated that, during his time working as a parish priest, he had built a new chapel, adorned the altar, and added a “very expensive” sculpted silver and gold cross, among other generous donations.

Lacking such boast-worthy accomplishments, clergymen with fewer funds and degrees often highlighted their perseverance instead. In doing so, they proved that they had earned a promotion, that they were willing to undergo what they saw as Christlike suffering, and that they had what it took to fulfill their duties under harrowing circumstances. Hence López de Escovedo’s epic narrative. Although he had done well in school, his dismal finances prohibited him from continuing his academic career beyond his bachelor’s degree. With his vivid story, he sought to show that what he lacked in educational accolades, he made up for with nearly boundless dedication to the Church and to the spiritual wellbeing of his parishioners.

López de Escovedo’s strategy appears to have worked: after submitting his méritos in 1749, he received the benefice of Oapan, in modern-day Guerrero. Yet his success paled in comparison to that of Dr. Vásquez, who attained the benefice of Taxco in 1710. Also in Guerrero, Taxco was a much more desirable benefice than Oapan, with a significantly better salary. Although López de Escovedo’s gripping resume was enough to land him a job, his perseverance was no match for education and wealth.

This article was originally published on the author’s website on September 15, 2015

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Material is from my forthcoming dissertation, “Built Upon the Tower of Babel: Language Policy and the Clergy in Bourbon Mexico,” The University of Texas at Austin, 2016. Méritos of Bernardino Pablo López de Escovedo and Joseph Francisco Vásquez de Cabrera are located in the Archivo General de la Nación in Mexico City (Bienes Nacionales 199, exp. 12 and Bienes Nacionales 338, exp. 2 respectively).

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