Here is a set of essays on "Historia general del Piru "that discuss not only the manuscript's physical components--quires and watermarks, scripts and pigments--but also its relation to other Andean manuscripts, Inca textiles, European portraits, and Spanish sources and publication procedures. The sum is an unusually detailed and interdisciplinary analysis of the creation and fate of a historical and artistic treasure.

Written by the Mercedarian friar Martin de Murua, the Historia general del Piru (1616) is one of only three extant illustrated manuscripts on the history of Inca and early colonial Peru. This immensely important Andean manuscript is here made available in facsimile, its beautifully calligraphed text reproduced in halftone and its thirty-eight hand-colored images--mostly portraits of Inca kings and queens--in color.

This volume showcases dynamic developments in the field of manuscript research that go beyond traditional textual, iconographic, or codicological studies. Using state-of-the-art conservation technologies, scholars investigate how four manuscripts--the Galvin Murua, the Getty Murua, the Florentine Codex, and the Relacion de Michoacan--were created and demonstrate why these objects must be studied in a comparative context. The forensic study of manuscripts provides art historians, anthropologists, curators, and conservators with effective methods for determining authorship, identifying...