Melchor Pérez de Soto: A Book Collector Faces the Inquisition (Digital Catalogue, 2011)

Melchor Pérez de Soto was a navigator, an architect, and an astrologer. He was born in Cholula, Mexico in 1606 and learned his trade as an architect from his father, Galician born Juan Pérez de Soto. He was appointed architect (obrero mayor) of Mexico City's Cathedral on 18 February 1653. Melchor Pérez de Soto first came to the attention of the Mexican Inquisition in the 1640s, during trials against crypto-Jews, but the Holy Office took no action until December of 1654. He was imprisoned, accused of possessing prohibited books and practicing astrology. After months in solitary confinement, pleading for just one book or a cellmate to keep him company, his jailors placed Diego Zedillo in Pérez de Soto's cell. The following morning, Pérez de Soto was found dead and a bloody rock lay beside Zedillo. Zedillo claimed that Pérez de Soto accosted him during the night, and in the darkness, his hand landed on the rock which he used to defend himself. As a result, we don't know how Pérez de Soto's trial would ultimately be resolved, and Zedillo hung himself in his cell some weeks later.

As was customary, all of Pérez de Soto's property was seized and inventoried at the time of his arrest. As a result, we have a list of the 1,592 books that were in his collection. The collection has been called "one of the finest private collections of books in seventeenth-century Mexico," and it included a number of books that were listed on the Index and ordered to be expurgated or were prohibited in their entirety. This joint exhibit by the John Hay Library and the John Carter Brown Library reconstructs a portion of Melchor Pérez de Soto's library.

From the entires on the manuscript inventory, it is rarely possible to identify the precise edition that Pérez de Soto owned, and many of the books listed appeared in multiple editions and/or translations. As such, this exhibit includes representative titles, but does not attempt to present the same editions found in Pérez de Soto's library. Labels printed on colored stock indicate books listed on the Index.

1. Navigator

Melchor Pérez de Soto first appears in the documentary record as a navigator, accompanying Pedro Porter Casanate on his 1643 exploration of Gulf and coastline of California. Porter Casanate, himself an accomplished navigator and mathematician, called Pérez de Soto an "expert cosmographer" (perito cosmógrafo) and the two were part of a large circle of scientifically minded men in Mexico City. Porter Casanate taught Pérez de Soto judicial astrology during their voyage up the Pacific coast of North America.

Pérez de Soto's collection included a great number of practical navigational texts, along with works explaining how to make and use nautical instruments. These were supplemented by accounts of voyages, geographical, and historical texts. All of these would inform his astrological practice, from the movements of celestial bodies to the manners and customs of distant lands.

1 annotation

Pedro de Medina e.a.

L'art de nauiguer

1569

1 annotation

Miguel Carlos da Cunha da Silveira e Lorena Saõ Vicente e.a.

Instrucion nauthica

1587

1 annotation

Andrés García de Céspedes

Regimiento de nauegacion q[ue] mando haser el rei nuestro señor por orde...

1606

1 annotation

Rodrigo de Zamorano

Compendio del arte de navegar

1588

1 annotation

Gemma

Gemma Phrysius De principiis astronomiae & cosmographiae, deq[ue] vsu gl...

1530

1 annotation

Martín Cortés e.a.

The arte of nauigation

1589

1 annotation

Bartolomeo Crescentio Romano

Nautica Mediterranea

1607

1 annotation

Manuel de Figueiredo

Hidrographia

1625

1 annotation

Antonio Vázquez de Espinosa

Tratado verdadero del viage y nauegacion deste año de seiscientos y vei...

1623

1 annotation

Bartolomé Garcia de Nodal e.a.

Relacion del viáje que por orden de Su Mag[esta]d. y acuerdo del real c...

1621

1 annotation

Martin Fernández de Enciso

Suma de geographia q[ue] trata de todas las partidas [y] prouincias del ...

1530

1 annotation

Benedetto Bordon

Libro di Benedetto Bordone nel qual si ragiona de tutte l'isole del mond...

1528

1 annotation

Thomaso Porcacchi e.a.

L'isole piu famose del mondo

1572

1 annotation

Giovanni Lorenzo d' Anania

La vniuersale fabrica del mondo

1573

1 annotation

Italia [Italy]

1576

1 annotation

Florián de Ocampo e.a.

Los quatro libros primeros de la cronica general de España

1543

1 annotation

Luis Cabrera de Córdoba e.a.

Filipe Segundo Rey de España

1619

1 annotation

[Descrittione d'Anvers]

1567

1 annotation

Geronimo Conestaggio e.a.

Historien der Königkreich, Hispannien, Portugal, vnd Aphrica, darauss d...

1589

1 annotation

Pieter Perret e.a.

Conquista de las islas Malucas

1609

1 annotation

Diego Fernández

Primera, y segunda parte, de La historia del Peru

1571

1 annotation

Francisco Caro de Torres e.a.

Historia de las ordenes militares de Santiago, Calatraua, y Alcantara de...

1629

2. Astrologer

Natural astrology, which included medical astrology and what today would be considered astronomy, was not only permitted by the Catholic Church but was also widely practiced. The Inquisition prohibited judicial astrology, which predicted future events based on the positions of planetary and stellar objects in relationship to the Earth. In addition to astrological and astronomical texts, Pérez de Soto's collection included medical texts and also books that specifically addressed the cosmological influences on the city's inhabitants.

1 annotation

D Cairns e.a.

Chronographia ou Reportorio dos tempos o mais copioso que te agora sayo ...

1594

1 annotation

Gregor Reisch

Margarita philosophica

1504

1 annotation

Nicolás Monardes e.a.

Primera y segunda y tercera partes de la historia medicinal de las cosas...

1574

1 annotation

Francisco Vicente de Tornamira e.a.

Chronographia, y repertorio de los tiempos, a lo moderno

1585

1 annotation

John Russell Bartlett e.a.

Tractado delas drogas, y medicinas de las Indias Orientales

1578

1 annotation

Tony de la Rosa e.a.

Quatro libros. De la naturaleza, y virtudes de las plantas, y animales q...

1615

1 annotation

Diego de Cisneros e.a.

Sitio, naturaleza y propriedades, de la ciudad de Mexico

1618

1 annotation

Fernando de Cepeda e.a.

Relacion vniversal legitima, y verdadera del sitio en que esta fundada l...

1637

3. Religion and Church History

Judging by the books in his collection, Pérez de Soto was a devout and orthodox Catholic. His collection was rich on the history of Catholic missions, and even included a bilingual confession manual and a treatise on the question of whether drinking chocolate would break the fast. Though he had no aspirations for the clergy, he was perhaps as well read on religious topics as the Inquisitors he faced.

1 annotation

Jerónimo Román

Republicas del mundo

1595

1 annotation

Pedro Morejon

Relacion de la persecucion que vuo en la yglesia de Iapon: y de los insi...

1616

1 annotation

Agustín Dávila y Padilla

Historia de la fundacion y discurso de la prouincia de Santiago de Mexic...

1596

1 annotation

Juan González de la Puente

Primera parte de la chronica augustiniana de Mechoacan

1624

1 annotation

Bartolomé de Alva

Confessionario mayor, y menor en lengua mexicana. Y platicas contra las ...

1634

1 annotation

Luis Montt e.a.

Question moral si el chocolate quebranta el ayuno eclesiastico

1636

1 annotation

Juan de Palafox y Mendoza

Sitio y socorro de Fuenterrabía, y sucesos del año de 1638, escritos d...

1793

1 annotation

Gil González Dávila

Teatro eclesiastico de la primitiua iglesia de las Indias Occidentales

1649-1655

4. Literature, Language, and the Collection of a Polymath

Although Pérez de Soto had learned the rudiments of Latin at a young age, much to his peril, he did not develop a proficiency in the language. Many of the books in his collection, including some on judicial astrology, were in Latin, and Pérez de Soto regularly sent them out to be translated. One of his translators, Gaspar Rivero Vasconcelos, "free mulatto, student of Cannon Law, descendent of Portuguese, born in Tangier" as his Inquisition case describes him, was tried by the Inquisition for practicing astrology and his testimony prompted Pérez de Soto's arrest.

Pérez de Soto's eclectic collection was particularly strong on astrology, architecture and military science; those sections of the exhibit are on display at the John Hay Library, in the Gammell Room, the North Gallery and in the Reading Room.

1 annotation

Ambrogio Calepino e.a.

Ambrosii Calepini Dictionarium multarum dictionum additione et explanati...

1542

1 annotation

Antonio de Nebrija e.a.

Construccion, y explicacion de las reglas del genero, conforme al Arte d...

1774

1 annotation

Mateo Alemán

Ortografia castellana

1609

1 annotation

Bernardo de Balbuena e.a.

Grandeza mexicana

1604

1 annotation

Pedro de Arenas

Vocabulario manual de las lenguas castellana, y mexicana

1611

1 annotation

Tomaso Garzoni e.a.

Plaza vniuersal de todas ciencias y artes

1615

1 annotation

Jo Bodmann e.a.

Giardino di fiori curiosi, in forma di dialogo; diuiso in sei trattati

1600

1 annotation

Camillo Camilli e.a.

Essame de gl' ingegni de gli huomini, per apprender le scienze

1582

1 annotation

Gonzalo Argote de Molina e.a.

Libro de la monteria

1 annotation

Bernardo de Vargas Machuca

Libro de exercicios de la gineta

1600

1 annotation

Felipe Echegoyan

Tablas de reduciones de monedas, y del valor de todo genero de plata y o...

1603

1 annotation

Jean de Courbes e.a.

Epitome de la biblioteca oriental i occidental, nautica i geografica

1629

Credits

Editorial Notes: Items Pending Integration

During the migration of our legacy catalogs and past exhibitions into Americana, there are occasionally items that cannot be immediately included in our new environment. This may happen for two reasons: the item in question is not yet cataloged, or it was lent by another institution.
Any items that are not integrated into Americana are included in this section and added to our processing queue.

51. Berrio de Montalvo, Luis. En informe del nuevo beneficio que se ha dado a los metales. Mexico: Francisco Robledo, 1643.
Berrio de Montalvo's treaties on the method of amalgamation to extract silver, also known as the patio process, recounts the history of its use in the New World, from 1557 in Mexico and 1571 in Peru. Scholars today still debate whether the patio process was invented in Europe or in Mexico.

Project Creator(s)

The John Carter Brown Library