Alonso de la Vera Cruz’s Manuals and the University of Mexico in 16th Century: Teaching Theology and Arts from a Missionary Perspective

Abstract

The creation of the University of Mexico (1553) favoured the intensification of the processes of translation of normative knowledge between Europe and America, which had already begun with the arrival of the first Spanish conquistadores and missionaries to the New World. This article offers a synthesis of the recent historiography on the University of colonial Mexico, to be profiled as a missionary Studium, clearly differentiated from the European models with which it has tended to be compared (in particular, Salamanca). Focusing on the printed works of the Augustinian friar Alonso de la Vera Cruz (1507-84), one of the first teachers at the University of Mexico, we find representative examples of the type of propaedeutic teaching of the Arts (Logic, Natural Philosophy) which was common in the particular academic context of 16th-century New Spain. On the other hand, the theological production of Vera Cruz illustrates well the strategies of flexibilization and localization that were put into practice in order to successfully translate the preexisting Christian normativity to unforeseen and challenging contexts.