Libraries

The popularity of the santarrosina legend crossed the borders, from Latin and Spanish of the territories of varied European languages. The Portuguese was not the exception as evidenced by the volume of Leonarda Gil da Gama, pseudonym of sor Madalena de Gloria. The famous Portuguese nun, “native of the sierra of Cientra”, in the same way as Rosa de Lima or Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, was a prodigy in her land. In addition to her own work written in verse and prose, she published this hagiography or sacred life of Rosa de Lima, following the narrative model of Leonardo Hansen’s version.

The work brings proemial and laudatory poems that exalt both the figure of the peruvian saint and the portuguese writer. It emphasizes particularly the title of the work, because it reveals a providential reading developed in the Americas. Rosa is seen as a star, who, like the Lady of Guadalupe, symbolizes the arrival of the Gospel to America. It also consolidates her image as a flower of paradise that was born in the American garden, as a result of the evangelization carried out by the Dominicans.