About
Title page of “Historia de la villa imperial de Potosí,” a historical, topographical, and popular culture account of Bolivia’s Imperial City Potosí by Bartolomé Arzáns de Orsúa y Vela. 1700. Image courtesy of the Brown Digital Repository.
Including material in and about the languages of the Romance regions, the Iberian and Latin American/Romance Language collection boasts thousands of items that create a rich picture of life and history in Latin America and Europe. A cornerstone of the collection is the George Church Collection, materials accumulated by Col. George Earl Church, who was a soldier, engineer, and financier in the 19th century. Over 3,000 volumes, the Church collection includes travel logs that depict a white perspective on travel literature and Latin America in the 1800s. Of the materials within the Church Collection, “Historia de la Villa Imperial Potosí” (History of the Imperial City Potosí) looms large. Engaging the political, economic, and social tides of life in Potosí, this 18th-century manuscript is an affective depiction of the Imperial City, which was at one point the largest in the New World.
The Romance Language Collection also features the Dante Collection, which includes various editions of the Divine Comedy. These multiple editions serve as a reference collection for scholars of Dante, histories, cities, and towns mentioned in Dante’s work.
Figueroa is compiling a database entitled “Voces de la Movida,” in which she indexes a collection of 1980s fringe magazines from Spain. A rare, comprehensive collection of 1980s magazines, “Voces de la Movida” showcases marginal groups, period pieces, and fringe culture in magazine form. Based on faculty and researcher interest in this period of Spanish history and personally partial towards primary sources, Figueroa curated the collection to specifically accommodate this niche research area.
Additional highlights of the collection include Literatura de Cordel, a genre of literature popular in northeastern Brazil. Characterized as “rap battles in written form” by Figueroa, Cordel are printed in brilliantly colored chapbooks and serve as a staple in Brazilian folk literature.
Three pamphlets of Literatura del Cordel. Courtesy of Patricia Figueroa
The Romance Language Collection also features children’s games that provide alternative perspectives on fascist governments and the colonial period in North Africa.
In the News:
- The Brown Daily Herald: University named best in nation for Brazilian studies
- Brown University News: Brown is Top-Ranked for Brazilian Studies
Access
- Information on the George Earl Church Collection, list of books in Church Collection
- Information on the Paul R Dupee ’65 Mexican History Collection
- List of Literature del Cordel chapbooks available at Brown
- List of Dante Collection materials
- Related Brown Library Guides: