The historical context and the bookish culture of Pedro de Peralta y Barnuevo

Recognized by his contemporaries as a scholar in different branches of letters and sciences, the Lima native Pedro de Peralta y Barnuevo was the author of numerous works and an insatiable reader. In this text I study the circumstances and the means that allowed him access to books and, therefore, to cultivate reading: the instruction he received at the University of San Marcos; the gatherings and academies in which he participated in Lima, and the bookish trade existing in this city. As an active member of the republic of colonial letters, Peralta must have accumulated an important collection of books during his lifetime, but unfortunately only a partial record of it has come down to us, thanks to the post-mortem inventory of his possessions, carried out in 1743. Despite its limitations, this inventory constitutes a historical source of exceptional interest because it confirms Peralta’s encyclopedic curiosity and allows us to reconstruct the historical context that made this possible. In the final part of this essay, I will transcribe this list of books and propose the respective identifications.