La “Descripción de la Bahía de Santa María de Galve” (1693) de Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora y la puesta en escena del archivo colonial

Abstract

This article addresses the way in which Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, through the manuscript “Descripción de la Bahía de Santa María de Galve” (1693), shows a series of textual relationships with discursive forms such as Relaciones Geográficas, with other texts mentioned in the manuscript (La Florida by Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, Naufragios by Al­var Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and Historia de la fundación y discurso de la provincia de Santiago de México de la orden de Predicadores by Agustín Dávila Padilla), and with the rest of the work of the Mexican polygraph. Through these intertextualities, we consider that the “Descripción de la Bahía de Santa María de Galve” is shown as a text that reflects, on the one hand, Sigüenza and Góngora’s mastery of the colonial archive and, on the other hand, the maturity and assimilation of the cultural practices that he cultivated and put at the service of the aforementioned exploratory project at the end of the 17th century.