Ximena A. Gómez

This book investigates the visual culture of Black and Indigenous confraternities in Lima during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries by embracing the generative possibilities of colonial erasure. With limited extant visual evidence, the project takes advantage of Lima’s rich documentary record for the early colonial period and uses the confraternities of the Virgin of Copacabana and of the Virgin of the Antigua as case studies for how subalterns can be incorporated into the history of Lima’s colonial art. By prioritizing confraternity members’ self-identifications, and taking interdisciplinary and anti-colonial approaches, the book demonstrates that Indigenous and Black people in colonial Lima were active patrons, defined the city’s visual culture through religious and social engagement, and applied their own cultural lenses in their use of sacred images and ritual objects.