Written by the Mercedarian friar Martin de Murua, 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 discuss 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.
