Fragments of History: Reconstructing Blas Valera’s Lost Historia Occidentialis

FAIN: HB-281350-22

Brian S. Bauer
Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois (Chicago, IL 60612-4305)

Research and editing a critical edition of Blas Valera’s Historia Occidentialis (1596), a chronicle of Incan history.

In this project, I will reconstruct parts of a lost chronicle titled Historia Occidentialis (History of the West) which was completed in 1596 by Blas Valera, a controversial Jesuit chronicler. Valera’s original chronicle was composed in Latin, Spanish, and Quechua, and focused on the history of the Incas. Parts of Valera’s work was copied into Garcilaso de la Vega’s The Royal Commentaries of the Incas [1609 and 1616], and can be extracted and parts of his lost chronicle can be reconstructed. The reconstruction of Valera’s lost work represents an excellent project for an NEH Award for Faculty at HSIs. The completion and publication of this project will establish Blas Valera has the first author of mix-Hispanic/Andean descent to complete a major chronicle on the history of the Incas and the events of the American-European contact period. It will be of interest to a wide range of scholars and individuals who are interested in the history of the Americas and the works of native peoples.