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During the viceregal era, it was a concern to publish books on mathematics, practical or applied mathematics because of how difficult the silver and gold conversions were. If for a professional merchant conversions were an uncomplicated daily task, for the common people they meant a true martyrdom and were victims of fraud and deceit. For this reason, books such as Joan de Belveder’s, Libro general de las reduciones and Tablas para la reducción de las barras of Garreguilla.
This work is a manual, a conversion tool that made it possible to determine the price of a piece of silver according to its purity and weight. Its author, Francisco Juan Garreguilla, was a Spanish accountant. He himself notes on the cover of his book this brief biographical reference: «Fecho por el contador Francisco Juan Garreguilla natural de la ciudad de Valencia en España».
As Ricardo Estabridis points out, in El grabado en Lima virreinal: documento histórico y artístico (siglos XVI al XIX), on the cover of the book there is «a very simple shield of the capital of the Viceroyalty of Peru, Lima, framed in a rectangle where you can see the three crowns of the Magi illuminated by the star of Bethlehem».

Daphne Cornejo
Proyecto Estudios Indianos
Digital Resources
Estabridis, Ricardo (2002). El grabado en Lima virreinal: documento histórico y artístico (siglos XVI al XIX). Lima: Fondo Editorial Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos