... The annals of Potosí composed by Bartolomé Arzáns de Orsúa y Vela (1674–1736) occupy a blurry literary domain between history and fiction, edifying morality tale and titillating scandal sheet. Like an Andean Cervantes, Arzáns’s narrator claimed to write from first-person knowledge, credible...

... and ecclesiastical hierarchy, he processed through an array of triumphal arches before the assembled crowds of spectators. Over a week, the city feted the viceroy, one highlight being an allegorical masquerade including a float of the splendid mountain of silver. Bartolomé Arzáns de Orsúa y Vela’s description...