Abstract

In the modern era, the Laws of the Indies required that Catholic bishops assigned to a post in the Spanish Americas submit an inventory of the personal belongings to be relocated with them. In conformance with this mandate, in the year prior to taking charge of the diocese of Santiago de Chile in 1708, don Luis Francisco Romero’s personal items were documented in preparation for their shipment from Cusco. This registry, which includes Romero’s collection of artworks, is maintained in the General Archive of the Indies in Seville. For the duration of Romero’s decade-long tenure in Santiago, his art collection was among the most illustrious in all of Chile, functioning as an identifying element of his social and professional status. This study seeks to identify the contents of this collection, and to understand the role this collection played in the larger circulation of artworks not only between Cusco and Santiago, but also among Europe, Asia, and the Americas. Finally, and uniting the focal themes of art, status, and circulation, the study reveals that Romero inherited works from the estate of Manuel de Mollinedo y Angulo, who served as archbishop of Cusco from 1673 until his death in 1699.