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Sociedad y gobierno episcopal: las visitas del Obispo Manuel de Mollinedo y Angulo (Cuzco, 1674-1687). By Pedro Guibovich Pérez and Luis Eduardo Wuffarden. (Lima: Instituto Francés de Estudios Andinos and Instituto Riva-Agüero. 2008. Pp. 243. ISBN 978-9-972-62360-8.)
Manuel de Mollinedo y Ángulo is well known to scholars of colonial Peru as the "obispo mecenas," patron of the arts during his long tenure as bishop of Cuzco (1673-99). In this fascinating book, Pedro Guibovich Pérez and Luis Eduardo Wuffarden provide a much richer view, both of the bishop and of the rural highland areas he visited between 1674 and 1687. Such pastoral visitations were more the exception than the rule, as Guibovich notes in his historical introduction. Mollinedo's were unusually thorough (see maps following p. 67). With his entourage, he braved treacherous roads and freezing weather- even lightning strikes, which fell inside the church in Azángaro as he was celebrating Mass, terrifying parishioners and raising a cloud of dust and an "intolerable stench" (p. 80). His aim was to improve the spiritual care of his flock, "new sheep in the Christian religion," who thus "needed more than any others...