The title indicates quite accurately the nature and scope of this work, whose purpose, according to the author, is to present the history of the primatial archdiocese of Bogotá through biographies of the prelates who have governed it. The first volume appeared in 1961 and covered the years from 1564 to 1819. This second volume carries the account down to 1868 and covers the lives of three archbishops: Fernando Caycedo y Flórez, who helped guide the Church carefully through the early years of independence (first as provisor and capitular vicar, then as archbishop), Manuel José Mosquera (brother of the famous dictator Tomás Cipriano de Mosquera), an able defender of the Church against the attacks of Colombian Liberals, and Antonio Herrán y Zaldúa, a less aggressive but no less dedicated leader.
Monsignor Restrepo Posada, a descendent of the illustrious historian of Colombia’s revolution for independence, has not produced an orthodox study. Instead, his work is essentially a collection of documents, source materials, and biographical data pertaining both to the lives of the prelates and to the problems they faced. These have been strung together upon a thread of narrative provided by the author-compiler. The materials, primary and secondary, have been drawn from diverse sources: from archives of the Church, from newspapers, from published collections of documents and correspondence (such as the Epistolario del doctor Rufino Cuervo), from memoirs and reminiscences of contemporaries (notably Restrepo’s Diario Político y Militar), from biographies, articles, and scholarly monographs (such as the studies of Leturia), and from standard histories (notably those by Groot, Restrepo, and Arboleda). “For the present work we have tried to make use of the most direct sources,” writes the author, “and the intimate epistolary correspondence of the Prelates has been of supreme value.”
The point of view of the work is what should be expected. The anticlerical measures of various Liberal administrations are severely condemned, and the period covered is described as “a half century of Calvary for religion.” Nevertheless, given the values and outlook of the author, the work is carefully done. The volume lacks a bibliography and footnotes. However, citations to the main printed sources, most of them well known, are included within the body of the text. The volume has a useful chapter index and an index of names.
