Libraries

Manuel Quiroz y Campo Sagrado (c.1751-¿1820?) was a prolific Novohispanic poet. His work of unequal quality was found dispersed in different repositories and is kept both in manuscript and in printed form. Quiroz wrote lyrical and dramatic poetry where he approaches religious, circumstantial and patriotic subjects, these last ones from the “rebel” point of view.

In his works it is important to highlight the “mute” poetry or the allegoric poetry, where the author combines drawings and verses. Therefore he is considered one of the best samples of late viceregal baroque art. There are eight collections: three loose poems and five collections of poems that you can find -some in private collections and some lost.

The Archivo General de la Nación de México (AGN) and the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes (INBA) informed in 1984 the existence of a facsimile version of the handwritten poems Colección de varias poesías de arte menor y mayor en obsequio de la Purísima Concepción de nuestra señora la virgen María… kept by the Repository; and, in 2016, the Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas, with the authorization of the Benson Latin American Collection of the Library of the Texas University, in Austin, released the digital version of La inocencia acrisolada.)

De los pacientes jesuanos. Collection of various poems alluding the restoration of the Compañía de Jesús (1816), work unusually kept by two different manuscripts with the same date: one that served as a basis for the mentioned edition, and, another with unknown location in the Library of the University of Saint Louis, Missouri (it has a microfilm in the Special Collections Fund of the Pius XII Memorial Library, with a slightly different name: Colección de varias poesías en celebridad del regreso de la sagrada Compañía de Jesús en todos los dominios de la católica Majestad del señor don Fernando VII…).

Review by Isabel Terán Elizondo
Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas
isabelteran@uaz.edu.mx