Abstract

The analysis of the sermons of the Tratado de los Evangelios by the Cuzco priest Francisco de Ávila allows us to problematize the conception and characterization of the literary man beyond its political role within colonial knowledge as ecclesiastical institutions defined from the relationship with the indigenous populations. Avila incorporates the epistemological dimension into the narrative of the political and value-based justification of the Hispanic conquest of the Incas and he introduces the subjects of knowledge and their knowledge as part of the conflict between Indians and Christians. The relationship between knowledge and power that Avila presents are aspects to be discussed about the characteristics of the literate elite in the mid-17th century located as cross-cultural agent on the borderline between the subject of baroque science and the colonial intellectual.