Colloquies on Peace and Christian Tranquility (ca. 1542-1582)

In 1536, the Colegio de Santa Cruz was established in Tlatelolco, near Mexico City, to provide an education in Latin and liberal arts to youths from indigenous noble families, preparing them to serve as political intermediaries between their communities and the Spanish authorities, but also enabling them to collaborate in the translation of the Christian message. Within the walls of this remarkable institution, fray Juan de Gaona and several of his Nahuatl-speaking pupils (among them Hernando de Ribas from Texcoco) composed a didactic dialogue in the Mexican language. Designed as a textbook for students, this work taught patience as a pathway to wisdom and salvation. Several decades later, the treatise was expanded and published under the title Colloquios de la paz y tranquilidad christiana, en lengua mexicana (1582). Colloquies on Peace and Christian Tranquility (ca. 1542-1582) presents the first English translation of this intercultural and collectively authored treatise which sheds light on the friars' educational strategies, and on the daily and intellectual life within the Colegio de Tlatelolco, as well as showing how the Franciscans and their Nahua co-authors preserved themes, vocabulary, and rhetorical figures from the Nahuatl culture they sought to Christianize.

Pagina's: 152, Hardcover, Dumbarton Oaks Research Library & Collection