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The Educational Activities of Fray Alonso de la Vera Cruz in Sixteenth Century Mexico

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

John F. Blethen
John F. Blethen*
Affiliation:
Augustinian College, Washington, D. C.
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Extract

The Little Pueblo of Tiripetío lies at the foot of a mountain near Morelia in the state of Michoacán. Its Indian name means “place of gold”, but the adobe houses with their straw roofs plus a general appearance of shabbiness belie such a title. Tiripetío, however, was not always a ghost town. In the sixteenth century it pulsed with life and activity. The life of the place centered about a convent of Augustinian friars, with its adjoining church, hospital and school. The name Vera Cruz is closely linked with this convent and school as with many other educational activities in sixteenth century Mexico. But like Tiripetío itself, which marked the scene of his early labours, the name of Alonso de la Vera Cruz has fallen into obscurity and today counts little, even with historians of his own Order. The recent work of Oswaldo Robles, a translation of one of Vera Cruz’s philosophic treatises, the Physica Speculano, (vd. The Americas, October 1944, under article: “Fray Alonso de la Vera Cruz and the Beginnings of Philosophic Speculation in the Americas”.) is truly a step in the right direction. It can only be hoped that the relatively settled political set-up in Mexico will open the way for a more thorough search for historical data on outstanding figures like Alonso de la Vera Cruz. The present article attempts, from the sources now at hand, to synthesize the many and varied activities in the field of education in which Vera Cruz engaged and to give an interpretation of the influence he exerted in the field of learning and in the development of the philosophic thought of his day in Mexico.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , July 1948 , pp. 31 - 47
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1948

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References

1 Icazbalceta, Joaquín García, Education in the City of Mexico during the Sixteenth Century, translated by O’Donnell, Walter J. C.S.C., Ph.D. (Historical Records and Studies, U. S. Catholic Historical Society, vol. XX, 1931), pg. 115 Google Scholar. See also Escobar, , Matías de, , Americana Thebaida, 175 Google Scholar: “Con los tres nominados (Juan de San Román, Diego de Chávez, Juan Bautista de Moya) y N. V. P. Mstro. (Alonso de la Vera Cruz) se dio feliz principio en nuestra provincia y aún creo que en todo este nuevo mundo a los estudios mayores de Artes y Teología, porque no he sabido que por este tiempo hubiese otros en toda la Nueva España; por lo cual halló haber sido Tiripetio primer convento de la Provincia de Mechoacán (sic), del Orden de Nuestro Gran Padre San Agustín, donde se comenzaron a leer publicamente, para todo el genero de gente, las ciencias mayores.”

2 Matías de, Escobar O. S. A., Americana Thebaida, Impretna Victoria (Mexico, 1924). 174 Google Scholar sqq.

3 Ibidem, 176.

4 Quotation, taken from the preface to the Recognitio Summularum, (a work of Alonso de la Vera Cruz) as reproduced in Icazbalceta, op. cit., 127.

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25 Ibidem, 140.

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27 Icazbalceta, op. cit., 118.