The Reader Melchor Pérez de Soto in His Own Context: Our Contemporary

Abstract

The author introduces the life of newspaniard architect Melchor Pérez de Soto (1606-1655) to formulate a hypothesis, which is as new as it is interesting, about this cosmographer and palmist’s cosmovision. The creation of Pérez de Soto’s unique vision of the world, started at birth and developed in his family environment (from the enchantress Galicia to the magical Cholula) and continued on his traveling through New Spain’s center, the cradle of heterodox practices. These circumstances, unfortunately, led to his incarceration by the Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition, due to his particular taste reading materials: he collected a library of up to 1600 volumes, which contained some banned books about judicial astrology and other similar topics, and its practice.Alejandro González Acosta vuelve a la vida del arquitecto novohispano Melchor Pérez de Soto (1606-1655) para plantear una hipótesis tan interesante como novedosa en torno a la cosmovisión que se formó en este cosmógrafo quiromántico durante su paso por este mundo: su contexto familiar y de nacimiento (Galicia hechicera, Cholula mágica) y su transcurrir por el centro de la Nueva España (cuna por excelencia de prácticas heterodoxas), los cuales lo llevaron, para desgracia suya, a estar preso en las cárceles del temido Tribunal del Santo Oficio de la Inquisición debido a sus gustos (logró coleccionar una biblioteca de aproximadamente 1600 volúmenes en títulos, muchos de ellos con temas afines), por “tener libros prohibidos de la astrología judiciaria, y usar de ella”.