Censorship and Art in Pre-Enlightenment Lima. Pedro de Peralta Barnuevo's 'Diálogo de los muertos: la causa académica' (PDF)

Peralta and His Era (p. 3)

Anonymous satirical writings were an effective means employed by South American writers to examine cultural and political tensions arising from their colonial situation. Given the atmosphere in which clandestine presses of the Pre-Enlightenment era operated and the manner in which books and pamphlets they produced were circulated throughout Peru, few such works have been preserved.

One document, however, which has survived, despite its undeserved obscurity, is Diálogo de los muertos: la causa académica ("Dialogue of the Dead: The Academy Lawsuit"), by Pedro Alejandrino José de Peralta Bamuevo Rocha y Benavides (1664- 1743).

One of those imposing minds of colonial Latin America about whom much has been written, yet little of it favorable, Peralta himself has contributed to the unflattering portrait that critics have painted of him and his era for, until recently, his prose was thought to be measured and uninspired.

It may help to remind the reader that Peralta was a prominent figure in whom were balanced striking yet dissimilar qualities. Indicative of his enterprising character is the diversity of positions he held: military and civil engineer, lawyer, consultant to the Inquisition, accountant, tax assessor, literary critic, orator, poet, historian, theologian, politician, astronomer, mathematician, architect, and translator.

In addition to his native tongue, Peralta mastered Italian, French, Portuguese, Tuscan, Greek, Latin, German, English, and Quechua. Although a native of Lima, he never traveled beyond the confines of that city, and obtained his encyclopedic knowledge partly from reading books imported with official license, and partly from reading texts that were difficult to obtain, such as the contraband works that made their way into his hands.

The son of Francisco de Peralta y Barnuevo and Magdalena Egipciaca de la Rocha y Benavides (d. 1693), Peralta was from middle-class origins. Although

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