Historia general del Piru: Facsimile of J. Paul Getty Museum Ms. Ludwig XIII 16, Boxed Set

Martín de Murúa

Written by the Mercedarian friar Martín de Murúa, the Historia general del Piru (1616) is one of only three extant illustrated manuscripts on the history of Inca and early colonial Peru. This immensely important Andean manuscript is here made available in facsimile, its beautifully calligraphed text reproduced in halftone and its thirty-eight hand-colored images―mostly portraits of Inca kings and queens―in color.

Boxed with the facsimile is a set of essays that discusses not only the manuscript's physical components―quires and watermarks, scripts and pigments―but also its relation to other Andean manuscripts, Inca textiles, European portraits, and Spanish sources and publication procedures. The sum is an unusually detailed and interdisciplinary analysis of the creation and fate of a historical and artistic treasure.

The essay volume—comprising contributions by Rolena Adorno, Barbara Anderson, Ivan Boserup, Thomas B. F. Cummins, Juan M. Ossio, Elena Phipps, Karen Trentelman, and Nancy Turner―is also sold separately.

Thomas B. F. Cummins is Dumbarton Oaks Professor of the History of Pre-Columbian and Colonial Latin American Art and chair of the Department of the History of Art and Architecture at Harvard University. Barbara Anderson is head of exhibitions and consulting curator for Spanish and Latin American materials at the Getty Research Institute.