“Reconociendo los brutos la generosidad de sus amos”: El vestido en el auto general de la fe de 1659

Abstract

This article studies wardrobe as an element that was part of the Mise en scène of the auto general de fe in New Spain in 1659, description of which we learn in the Relación written by Rodrigo Ruiz de Cepeda Martínez, a civil servant of the Tribunal de Santo Oficio de la Inquisición. In the New Spain society of the seventeenth century wardrobe had two meanings: on one hand, it established both a position and status among a privileged social group, namely as a symbol of power within the courtesan society; another meaning was that of an indicator of the continent's historical transformation as an emerging sign of the constitutive and productive forms of americanidad (American identity).