Baroque festival in Peru with Don Quixote as protagonist (1607)

Abstract

We present the festival that took place in the city of Pausa, a district of Cuzco, in 1607, on the occasion of the official entry of Viceroy Hurtado de Mendoza in Lima. A Cordovan knight represented symbolically the figure of Don Quixote, who was the attraction of the celebration. A year before, dozens of copies of the first edition of The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha had arrived in Lima. It had been published in 1605, which proves that the book trade between Spain and America was important. The festival reflects perfectly the structure and development of the so-called “Baroque festivals”, which are analyzed here, collecting a historical bibliography with references to this type of events held in Lima and Peru at the beginning of the 17th century.