The First History of Latin American Art

Students of Latin American art of the colonial period will agree that this book, which deals with the development of architecture in Spanish America during the sixteenth century, is the most important analysis of the subject that has yet been made. Prepared with the assistance of the Spanish government and the cooperation of private investigators and government agencies in Latin America, this book is the first of a series of volumes which, it is to be hoped, will eventually present the whole history of Hispanic American art. It brings together for the first time a mass of factual information taken from source material of the period concerning the earliest monuments of Spanish building from Mexico to BoliVia and interprets it in the light of Spanish architecture of the time with a knowledge and an attention to detail never before applied on such a scale. Almost without exception every building mentioned is fully illustrated, plans of the more important are provided, together with diagrams of variant architectural details such as moldings, bases and arches, and whenever possible contemporary architect’s drawings from the Archivo de Indias in Seville are submitted as well. Although a good deal of this material had previously been published in one form or another, there is much that had not been, especially in the chapters devoted to South America. The work therefore goes beyond the mere compilation of facts already recorded and presents a whole series of new monuments on the basis of original investigation.