Spectacular wealth and festivals were produced in the two colonial mining towns addressed in this book: the great silver town of Potosí, in the Spanish empire; and Minas Gerais's Vila Rica do Ouro Preto (Rich Town of Black Gold), in the Portuguese empire. Festivals and the display of power are important topics analyzed widely in Europe since Jacob Burckhardt. Researchers have now a database, from the University of Oxford, of early modern festivals between 1500 and 1800, and the British Library has digitized 253 Renaissance festival books for different ceremonies between 1475 and 1700. In Spanish America the literature and sources available are much fewer; besides the books by Linda Curcio-Nagy and Stephanie Merrim for Mexico, the historiography for Spanish American festivals is scattered across articles. Lisa Voigt's book is therefore an important contribution.
Spectacular festivals glorified the crown, the church, and sovereigns while demonstrating vassals' submission. Voigt states, however,...
