Textual scholars of Early Modern Spanish-America, Paul Firbas (Stony Brook University) and José Antonio Rodríguez Garrido (Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú) have released this July 2023 the second and final volume of the Diary of outstanding news in Lima and European News, Diario de noticias sobresalientes en Lima y Noticias de Europa, corresponding to the newssheets published in Lima between 1706 and 1711, the final years of this first periodical newssheets from the Americas, printed by Joseph de Contreras y Alvarado. After the publication of the first volume in 2017, which covered the beginning of the newspaper from 1700 to the end of 1705, this second volume makes available to scholars and general readers a unique complete set of twelve years of information and narratives about Lima, the viceroyalty of Peru and Europe, locally produced as a response to a European crisis. The two volumes comprise a corpus of almost one-thousand pages in Spanish and constitute an exceptional new source for the history of South America and Transatlantic Iberia, and for our understanding of the early development of global journalism.
This second volume offers, like the first one, a scholarly transcription of the printed news in modernized Spanish, accompanied by footnotes on lexical issues, cultural references, intertextuality, and information sources. It also includes a new study on the production of news in Lima during the difficult context, both transatlantic and local, that followed the government of viceroy Conde de la Monclova, a time of great political instability. The news covered the period from January 1706 to December 1711, corresponding to the most critical years of the War of the Spanish Succession and, in the Viceroyalty of Peru, to the governments of the Marquis of Castell dos Rius and, partially, of the archbishop Diego Ladrón de Guevara. The Lima newspapers stand out not only for being a unique source of information and record of the circulation of news in the viceroyalty, but also for constituting a complete series of more than one hundred pamphlets or impresos sueltos, printed without interruptions in twelve years. All this material is gathered in an exceptional volume that was compiled in Lima at the beginning of 1712, probably in the same printing workshop, and which is now preserved in the New York Public Library. It should be noted that in studies on journalism of the ancien régime and the history of the media, both in Europe and in the Americas, there are almost no modern and annotated editions of complete news series, as is the case of this two-volume edition.
The newsprints from Lima and Europe included in this second volume display, mostly, the history of the elites in the Viceroyalty of Peru, with powerful local merchants in a context of intense French smuggling in South America, and the daily life of the city, strongly impacted by the European war. Local news reveal the social hierarchies and the active role of diverse civil and religious institutions, but also describe and narrate city festivals, political celebrations and popular devotions. Ultimately, the Diario de noticias highlights the importance of the Lima editorial and printing workshop as an instrument of government, and as an hemispheric news-hub within the Hispanic Monarchy.
Worked for almost two decades by professors Paul Firbas and José Antonio Rodríguez Garrido, these two volumes have been published by the Instituto de Estudios Auriseculares (IDEA) in a limited edition on paper but are also available for free download in digital format. The facsimiles of all Lima newssheets (1700-1711) are also accessible online in separate PDFs, with corresponding page numbers to both edited volumes.
This research and publication were funded by Stony Brook University and the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, with additional support from the Universidad de Navarra (GRISO), Universidad del Pacífico (Perú) and the Fundación Pía de los Pizarro.
More information in English is available on Prof. Paul Firbas site. The two volumes and facsimiles can be accessed on the Diario de Lima new website.
Book presentation in Lima, August 2023, PUCP. Fron let to righth: Prof. María Gracia Ríos, Prof. Paul Firbas and Prof. José A. Rodríguez Garrido. Full video here.