{"id":7,"date":"2015-06-10T14:08:25","date_gmt":"2015-06-10T14:08:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/potosi\/?page_id=7"},"modified":"2025-03-04T16:15:45","modified_gmt":"2025-03-04T21:15:45","slug":"home","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/potosi\/","title":{"rendered":"Home"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Historia de la villa imperial de Potosi<\/strong>
\nriquesas incomparables de su famoso cero, grandesas de su magnanima poblacion, sus gueras civiles y casos<\/strong><\/p>\n

By\u00a0Bartolom\u00e9 Arz\u00e1ns de Ors\u00faa y Vela (1676-1736)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"primeraparte\"<\/a><\/div>\n
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The Historia de la villa imperial de Potosi,<\/em><\/a> written c.1705-1736 by Bartolom\u00e9 Arz\u00e1ns de Ors\u00faa y Vela (1676-1736) and continued briefly by his son, Diego, chronicles life in the Bolivian \u201cImperial City\u201d of\u00a0Potos\u00ed<\/a>, once the largest city in the New World and home to its most lucrative silver mine. The manuscript held at the John Hay Library<\/a> is the primera parte<\/em> of the complete work and records, as the\u00a0subtitle indicates, the social and political unrest of the city, as well as its “unparalleled riches and the greatness of its magnanimous people, its civil wars and memorable cases.\u201d Illustrations included in the manuscript portray the\u00a0metallurgy work of the city<\/a>, its topographical features, and historic events.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The Manuscript of the\u00a0primera parte<\/em> was of uncertain origin and provenance before it was purchased in 1905, in Paris, by Colonel George Earl Church<\/a> (1835-1910). Church, a direct descendant of Captain Benjamin Church who fought in the King Philip War, was commander of a Rhode Island regiment during the Civil War, an engineer, and well known for his explorations into South America. In 1912, the John Hay Library<\/a> was left his personal library<\/a> of over 3,500 volumes focusing on economic, historic, geographic, and descriptive studies of the Latin American and Caribbean regions. Historia de la villa imperial de Potosi is perhaps the most important item in the collection.<\/div>\n
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In 1965, in celebration of the bicentennial anniversary of the University, the 1,200 page manuscript was transcribed<\/a> and\u00a0published<\/a> for the first time in its entirety and in the original Spanish.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Further reading:
\nSpecial Collections of the Brown University Library: A History and Guide<\/a>.
\nLewis, Hanke. Statement concerning the contents of the “Historia de la Villa Imperial de Potos\u00ed.”<\/a>\u00a0Journal de la Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 des Am\u00e9ricanistes<\/em>, Vol. 28, No. 2 (1936), pp. 401-404.
\nPhelan, John. The History of Potosi of Bartolome Arzans y Vela<\/a>. The Hispanic American Historical Review<\/em>, Vol. 47, No. 4 (Nov., 1967), pp. 532-536.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Historia de la villa imperial de Potosi riquesas incomparables de su famoso cero, grandesas de su magnanima poblacion, sus gueras civiles y casos By\u00a0Bartolom\u00e9 Arz\u00e1ns de Ors\u00faa y Vela (1676-1736) The Historia de la villa imperial de Potosi, written c.1705-1736 by Bartolom\u00e9 Arz\u00e1ns de Ors\u00faa y Vela (1676-1736) and continued briefly by his son, Diego, … Home<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":51,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"template-full-width.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-7","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/potosi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/potosi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/potosi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/potosi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/potosi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7"}],"version-history":[{"count":56,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/potosi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":317,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/potosi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7\/revisions\/317"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/potosi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/potosi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}