Relacion de la provincia i tierra de la Vera Paz i de las cosas contenidas en ella como son montes, fuentes, animales, aves i plantas, i arboles, del numero de los pueblos i distancia de las yglesias i fundacion dellas, i de lo que cada uno tiene, i finalmente del numero de gente sus lenguas su policia i cristiandad desde el año de 1544 hasta este de 1574.

Format:

Manuscript

Author/Creator:

Francisco, Prior of Viana.

Contributor:

Gallego, Lucas.

Cadena, Guillem.

Berendt, C. Hermann (Carl Hermann), 1817-1878, former owner.

Brinton, Daniel G. (Daniel Garrison), 1837-1899, former owner.

Language:

Spanish

Subjects (All):

Dominicans--Guatemala--Early works to 1800.

Dominicans.

Indians of Central America--Guatemala--Early works to 1800.

Indians of Central America.

Verapaz (Guatemala)--Early works to 1800.

Verapaz (Guatemala).

Guatemala.

Genre:

annotations

maps (documents)

Manuscripts, Spanish.

Penn Provenance:

Copied from a copy in the collection of E. G. Squier (1821-1888) made in 1857 by Buckingham Smith from a manuscript in v. 39 of the collection of Juan Bautista Muñoz at the Real Academia de la Historia in Madrid (f. 24v).

From the collection of C. Hermann Berendt, later acquired by Daniel Garrison Brinton.

Physical Description:

43 leaves : paper ; 340 x 225 (250 x 162) mm bound to 340 x 227 mm

Contained In:

Berendt-Brinton Linguistic Collection. Item 212

Place of Publication:

New York, 1872.

Language Note:

Spanish.

Summary:

19th-century copy of a description of the Guatemalan province of Verapaz written by three Dominican friars, Francisco, prior of Viana; Lucas Gallego; and Guillem Cadena. Includes information on topography, climate, flora, fauna, settlements, churches, and population, as well as the work of the Dominicans in the province between 1554 and 1574. To his copy, C. Hermann Berendt added excerpts from Juan Gavarrette Escobar's Apuntes para los Anales del antiquo reino de Guatemala (f. 5v-6r) and a map of the region around Lago de Izabal, here under the name Golfo Dolce, copied in 1878 from a 1680 manuscript of Fuentes y Guzman's Recordacion Florida at the Biblioteca de la Universidad, Guatemala (f. 7v). There are also corrections and annotations in the main text in red ink. 16 loose notes, presumably made in the preparation of the manuscript and previously stored in an envelope mounted on f. 6r, are now in mylar and filed with the manuscript.

Notes:

Ms. gathering.

Title from caption title page (f. 7r).

This was the eighth of ten manuscripts and facsimiles formerly bound together, now disbound (Item 205-Item 214).

Foliation: Paper, 27 + 16 loose items; f. 9-24 have foliation 2-17 in ink, upper right recto; modern pencil foliation, lower right recto. References in this record are to the modern foliation.

Layout: Written in 30 long lines.

Script: Written in the hand of C. Hermann Berendt.

Decoration: Map with coastlines in blue ink and communities indicated by small houses (f. 7v).

Watermark: PIRIE'S Old Style.

Origin: Copied in New York in 1872.

Cited in:

Described in Weeks, John M. The Library of Daniel Garrison Brinton (University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, 2002), p. 373-374 (no. 4294).

Cited as:

UPenn Ms. Coll. 700, Item 212

Contains:

Gavarrette Escobar, Juan.

OCLC:

182862985