Juan Carlos G. Mantilla, an assistant professor of world literatures at California State University in Fresno (USA) has written a new essay for the Census research blog Verso. Mantilla’s essay, titled Sacsayhuaman in Early Modernity: the Invention of New Ancient Edifices, examines the various ways in which art and history of the Early Modern period interpreted the Inca building Sacsayhuaman in Cuzco. By studying Italian, Andean, and Spanish visual and written sources, he analyzes how this pre-Columbian edifice was conceptualized, described, narrated, and depicted. His essay reveals how the reception of non-Western material culture influenced Early Modern art historical and architectural thought and provided the principles for the invention of new ancient edifices. Mantilla argues that its transformations depended on the invention of the Inca King, a royal, yet indigenous figure from the ancient past who was fundamental to Early Modern imaginings of Andean history. He also considers the implications of efforts to include Sacsayhuaman in the database of the “Census of Antique Works of Art and Architecture Known in the Renaissance,” raising questions about how early modern antiquarian knowledge is systematized and categorized. The essay is published in both English and in German. Click here to read the English version, or here for the German translation. Mantilla was a predoctoral fellow in Rome and Berlin in 2022–23 as the first recipient of the Census x Hertziana Fellowship.
Census x Hertziana x Warburg Fellow: Karl-Magnus Brose
Between November 2024 and July 2025 Karl-Magnus Brose will be hosted in Berlin, Rome and London as a Census x Hertziana x Warburg fellow. The...
