Mapping Dry Land: Valparaíso and Late-Sixteenth-Century Morisco Ecologies

Lecture by María Lumbreras, Assistant Professor of History of Art and Architecture, University of California, Santa Barbara

In the spring of 1595, a series of archeological discoveries near the Spanish city of Granada initiated the first formal investigation into Iberian sacred antiquities explicitly modeled after a judicial inquiry. Strikingly, a considerable portion of the Sacromonte inquest file revolves around a particular environmental question: had the then-barren hill in which the supposedly ancient relics were found always been dry, as the testimony of elderly Morisco witnesses suggested? Or had it once been fertile, as antiquarian theories about sacred landscapes dictated? This presentation focuses on the visual and material evidence produced in the course of the inquiry, including depositions of local conocedores (“knowers”), that is, Morisco experts in land and water management. By closely reading these sources, the talk offers a new reading of the famous forgeries that emphasizes the crucial role of Morisco forms of natural knowledge, placemaking, and territorial praxis–what Prof. Lumbrera calls Morisco ecologies.

María Lumbreras is a Professor of History of Art and Architecture at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her research focuses on the history of antiquarianism, particularly the roles played by replication and material experimentation in period understandings of evidence.