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The paper aims to analyze the Spanish expedition headed by Ruy López de Villalobos, that left from New Spain in 1542. Two documents provide different points of view about the same expedition: (i) one official report, written by García Descalante Alvarado in Lisbon, in 1548; (ii) one letter, written by the Jesuit Cosme de Torres (1510-1570) from Goa (India), in 1549. The comparison of the texts shows how the rivalry between the Spanish and the Portuguese kingdoms were running at the time in the Pacific Ocean. Besides, the second document was edited during the 16th century, which reveals the discursive component in that rivalry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a programme note to his play Making History, Friel said that 'history and fiction are related and comparable forms of discourse and that an historical text is a kind of literary artifact.' Approached in this context, two plays focusing on a significant date of Irish history, the sixteenth century Anglo Irish relations revolving around Hugh O ' Neill, the Earl of Tyrone offer two different versions of the same historical period. The O'Neill written by Thomas Kilroy and Making History by his contemporary playwright Brian Friel. Both playwrights drew upon Sean O'Faolain's biography, The O 'Neill (1942). Kilroy focuses on O'Neill's dilemma between his loyalty to his traditional Gaelic heritage and his commitment to the new modern order. In Friel's play, O'Neill is portrayed as a leader who is aware that he is making history. Discussing history openly with Lombard, the historian who is recording the moment, O'Neill reads history differently from him and suggests to Lombard to put Mabel, his wife, at the centre of his history of O'Neill. However, in the historical myth, Lombard is creating she remains peripheral and O'Neill becomes a hero of counter-reformation. It is Friel in his own re-making of history who will reinstate her in the centre about four hundred years later. This re-making has, in its turn, 'metabiologically' created an atmosphere leading to the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. The paper will focus on this multiple fictive and real functions of history as truth and mythmaking in the plays mentioned above. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethnopharmacological relevance Cissus verticillata (L.) Nicolson and C.E. Jarvis is best known for its hypoglycaemic and anti-lipemic action. In Brazilian ethnopharmacy it is called “plant-insulin” and used mostly against diabetes, as well as in abscesses, haemorrhage and epilepsy. In the present paper we study the past significance of this plant recorded between 1571 and 1829 both in ethnic (Mexico, Haiti) and official (European) pharmacies. Aim of the study (1) We are able to identify Carolus Sanctus and Lupulus Mechiocanus from Renaissance and later sources as Cissus verticillata . The specific identity of its historical herbal stock has not been proposed yet. (2) The identification we propose enables us to extract a number of historical ethnopharmacological usages from historical texts, not mentioned so far. (3) We try to find links between historical and present popular usages of C. verticillata . Material and methods The identity of Carolo Sancto and Lupulus Mechiocanus as Cissus verticillata has been proposed on the grounds of: (1) analysis of pre-Linnaean synonymic polynomials, (2) critical evaluation of old illustrations in botanical and pharmaceutical works, compared to living plants, (3) comparison of morphological, anatomical and histochemical characters of C. verticillata with old pharmacognostical descriptions of the plant and the herbal stock which it delivered. Results We have recognised the specific identity on the basis of: (1) subsequent botanical works published between 1574 and 1763; (2) Hans Sloane׳s herbarium specimen No. BM589925; (3) morphology and organoleptic characteristics of the bark and roots published in the 16th and 17th century which are confirmable in living plants. Cissus verticillata was discovered by Nicolás Monardes in Mexico in 1571 and first published in Europe under the name Carolo Sancto in 1574. In European pharmacy the plant was also called Lupulus Mechiocanus. In official European pharmacy the root ( Radix Caroli Sancti = Rad. Indica , later its sole bark) was appreciated for its action to teeth and gums when chewed. Internal usages (ascribed initially to this medicament) were gradually discarded in the late 1700s. Roots were met in the European trade until 1795. Conclusions Cissus verticillata is common in Americas and could have been imported to Europe since the 16th century. Complete plants were not seen knowingly in European pharmacy; taxonomical investigation of this species developed independently. Ethnopharmacological usages described between 1582 and 1829 were not adopted in Europe with the exception of two recommendations: “weakness of the stomach” and fevers. Gastroprotective and anti-inflammatory actions were re-discovered in the 2000s. Two other historical usages: antiepileptic and styptic, are observed in today׳s ethnomedicine of Brazil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes that the colonial discourse by Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo, the Official Chronicler of Indies in the first half of the 16th century, takes in contact with certain pre-Columbian indigenous expressions of the Caribbean and Central America. In particular, we focus on the representations that the chronicler creates about the areíto, or Indian feast, the most indescribable and incomprehensible manifestation among their practices. I propose that, in presence of the areitos, Oviedo's colonial discourse becomes brittle and contradictory, plurivalent. Thus, to approach the symbolic level of the Historia General j Hatural de las Indias, I utilize a literary-critical perspective together with the help of the study of some information provided by ethnography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In legal proceedings from 16th century viceroyalty of Peru, indigenous witnesses identified themselves according to the convention of Spanish judicial system by name, place of residence and age. This last category often proved to be difficult. Witnesses claimed that they did not know their age or gave an approximate age using rounded decimal numbers. At the moment of the Spanish invasion, people in the Andes followed the progress of time during the year by observing the course of the sun and the lunar cycle, but they were not interested in measuring time spans beyond the year. The opposite is true for the Spanish invaders. The documents where the witnesses testified were dated precisely using counting years from a date in the distant past, the birth year of the founder of the Christian religion. But this precision in the written record perhaps distorts the reality of everyday Spanish practices. In daily life, Spaniards often measured time in a reference system similar to that used by the Andeans, dividing the past in relation to public events like a war or personal turning points like the birth of a child. In the administrative and legal area, official Spanish dating prevailed, and Andean people were forced to adapt to this novel practice. This paper intends to contrast the Andean and Spanish ways of measuring the past, but will also focus on the possible areas of overlap between both practices. Finally, it will be asked how Andeans reacted to and interacted with Spanish dating and time measuring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we analyze Juan de la Fuente's life and work. De la Fuente was a medical doctor with medical studies in Sigüenza and Sevilla, minor Spanish universities at that time. Born in Mallorca, he came to New Spain in 1563 and later, he was the first professor in the new Faculty of Medicine in the Royal and Pontificial University of Mexico. His life could be considered as an example of a brilliant professional career developed by a Spanish Medical Doctor coming to the New World, in his case to Mexico. Being a doctor in the main Mexican hospitals, and caring for numerous and select patients. Also was selected as visitador and protomédico, important responsabilities in the regulation of medical practice and quality of medicaments. As a cultivated man, he was a typical case of a humanist. He not only was interested in medicine, but also in natural history, dialectics and philosophy, with a good knowledge of Latin, classical literature and so on. He won the first Medicine Cathedra in 1578 and continued in this place until his death. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents an analysis of textile finds from graves 43 and 112, discovered during archaeological excavations in 2004 and 2005 at the site of Crkvari - St Lawrence (Sv. Lovro) church. Both graves lay adjacent to the northern church wall, within the sacristy revealed by archaeological excavations. Grave 43 was superimposed in physical and stratigraphical terms over grave 112. The fill of grave 43 yielded several pieces of textile strips with golden threads (F 118). The fill of grave 112 likewise yielded a textile strip with golden threads (SF 33) as well as the dislocated skull of a young woman, wrapped with the remains of textile embroidered with golden fibers (SF 27). The analysis of the textile established that it belonged to two clothing items, most probably a woman's cap (SF 27) and a strip (SF 33 and F 118) that bordered a clothing item. The textile from both graves belonged to valuable clothing items, whose use was limited to distinct and richer social classes. Based on the archaeological stratigraphy and absolute dates obtained by the 14C method, we can date the discovered textile objects around the mid-16th cent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analysis of representations of Croatian cities bound into five manuscript atlases: two atlases (signature Cod. 8607 and Cod. 8609) from the Collection of Manuscripts, Documents and Heritage of the Austrian National Library (Handschriften-, Autographen-und Nachlass-Sammlung der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek) in Vienna, two (signature Schr. XXVI, F. 96, Nr. 6 and Schr. XXVI, F. 96, Nr. 11) from the Saxon Central State Archive (Sächsisches Hauptstaatsarchiv) in Dresden and one (signature Hfk. Bd. XV) from the Main Land Archive (Generallandesarchiv) in Karlsruhe. Some of the problems encountered during the research are described and explained in the paper. They are: determination of more accurate data about the first discoveries about the existence of representations of Croatian cities, the titles of the atlases and the time of their production. Incorrect signature citation is stressed, as well as the problem of incomplete data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]