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He Survived “La Noche Triste” & Much, Much More
   THE CONQUEROR'S REWARD  

(A CONQUISTADOR'S GRANT OF ARMS).  Felipe II,

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•  Pedro de Villanueva was one of the conquistadores of Mexico.  He was among Cortés's original party, part of the Francisco de Saucedo (also spelled “Salcedo”) contingent, whose ship was delayed in leaving Cuba.  With Saucedo, a friend of Cortés, he arrived at Villarica de Veracruz in July of 1519, shortly after Cortés and his men had destroyed the “idols” at Cempoala.

Villanueva was among the small but grand “army” that marched into Tenochtitlán in the Spring of 1520 and in July of the same year were to flee the western world's largest city fighting for their lives, on the “Noche Triste.”  He survived the hell and slaughter of the causeways and later returned with the greatly augmented force that destroyed the Aztec capital and its empire. Still later he was with Cortés in the exploration and conquest of Pánuco and following that with Nuño de Guzmán in the exploration and conquest of Zacatecas and Jalisco. He and his brother Fernando (also a member of the Saucedo contingent) jointly received an encomienda (Quechula) and settled in Puebla de los Angeles where Pedro served as a regidor on the town council in the 1540s and 1550s.

In the last years of the 1550s Villanueva petitioned the crown for the grant of a coat of arms in recognition of his service to the crown in the conquest of Mexico.  Felipe II honored that request in this impressive document.  He enumerates the Conqueror's deeds, specifically mentioning Don Hernando Cortés and Nuño de Guzmán and the various conquests in which Villanueva participated.  He describes the coat of arms being granted and the significance of the colors and symbols.  The granted arms are beautifully accomplished in many colors within the text of the document, with that text yielding space to the large miniature: Measuring 17.5 x 15 cm (7" x 6"), the arms are painted with a formal frame delimiting their presentation on a red field with corner brackets of gold over blue.  Surmounting the arms is a knight's helm with plumage, trailing from which are decorative “swooshes.”  The new Villanueva arms are quartered, showing a cyphered “M” surmounted by a fleur de lis in the upper left, a crowned lion en passant in the upper right, an arm holding a sword rising out of a flowing river in the lower left, and a castle on a hill in the lower right.

The text of the grant of arms is elegantly indited in a standard court semi-round gothic in sepia ink and is enclosed on the left, right, and top sides by an illuminated and historiated sash-like border.  In the upper left and right corners are miniatures of Justice and Knowledge in sylvan settings.  Running between those two along the top of the document is a decorative panel incorporating flowers, fruits, mythic animals, and cherubs.  Below this, the king's name is accomplished in large letters of gold on a field of red accented with gold, and the “D” of his honorific “Don” is given special treatment.  This is elaborated in an ornate, almost baroque style that comes close to obfuscating the fact of its being a majuscule “d”:  Wrought in gold, the letter at first appears to be merely a “frame” for the royal coat of arms that fills its center.  The king's arms are accomplished in gold, white, black, red, and blue; the whole being laid on a blue field with white accents.

The panels running down the left and right sides of the document are accomplished in red, gold, green, pink, white, red, blue, and brown, many in several shades.  The decoration includes birds of several varieties including a fine owl, animals including a watchful rabbit, strawberries and other fruits, and flowers, ribbons, grotesques, and butterflies.




The document is signed in the king's name by Juana (Joanna Habsburg) de Austria, “princesa de Portugal.”  Married to Prince Juan of Portugal, young Juana (b. 1537) was the regent of the Spanish crown from 1554 until her brother Philip's return to Spain in September of 1559. She had just lost her husband to death and borne his posthumous son, both in January, 1554, when she left Portugal and her child in the Spring of that year to assume the regency throne in Valladolid.



In format and content this document differs dramatically from the cartas executorias de hidalguía that most collectors are familiar with.    Here we have a single large sheet of vellum handsomely engrossed, artfully illuminated, and exquisitely decorated with a composite border containing miniatures.  This is not a bound volume of copies of documents created for storage in the family archive. This was created for display in a prominent place of honor; and it is a magnificent display item.  This is not a grant of nobility nor a confirmation of it based on something that some vague ancestor did; rather it is a grant of a coat of arms to a man who himself performed significant military and other service for the Crown and whom the Crown wishes to honor both publicly and privately.  Only a few hundred of Cortés's men survived the Noche Triste, the reentry into and destruction of Mexico City, and the subsequent conquests in Panuco and elsewhere.  The number of grants such as this to actual members of Cortés's original “army” were few.

And surviving grants to those actual participants in the Conquest are extremely rare, even more so in commerce. This is the only royal grant of a coat of arms to an actual member of Cortés's “army” that we have seen that has ever appeared in the marketplace.  Via published auction records and our extensive archive of dealer catalogues, we trace no instance before this one of the offering for sale of a grant of arms to a Conqueror of Mexico.  Yes, there are examples in various libraries and museums in Mexico and Spain, and probably in the U.S., but such examples seem to have entered their institutional resting places via donation from descendants of Conquerors, not via purchase.

Provenance:  It is awesome to realize that this is no mere retained secretarial copy of Felipe's grant of arms to Pedro de Villanueva.  This gorgeous document not only records the king's rewards to one of Cortés's men, but was that Conqueror's personal property.  It is the copy of the decree sent to him expressly, by the Crown!



•  On Villanueva, see: Icaza, Diccionario autobiográfico de conquistadores y pobladores de la Nueva España, I, 88–89; Thomas, Who's Who of the Conquistadors, 146; Himmerich y Valencia, The Encomenderos of New Spain, 1521–1555, 262; Díaz del Castillo, Verdadera historia de la conquista de la Nueva España, chap. LIII. On Juana de Austria, see: the work of Dr. Kelli Ringhofer.  Overall in very good condition.  Some fold tears, some minor rubbing of small areas of images, stains as visible in our illustrations.  The wax seal and its silk cords no longer present. Text clear, not faded, and colors strong.

To review the pictures of this document more systematically than
“mousing over” the image at our description's top may allow:

This entry is repeated in the
“D–H” section of this
catalogue . . .

Sor Juana & Her Arch Enemy

•  "The Tenth Muse" to the Anglo-American audience is Anne Bradstreet, but throughout Spanish America and Spain, and in goodly parts of Europe, that sobriquet is associated only with Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz — the New World’s greatest lyric poet.   Born in a small town in Mexico in 1651, she learned to read Latin before she was six. Denied admission to the Royal University in Mexico, she was to enter conventual life instead, develop a close friendship with the great colonial Mexican polymath Sigüenza y Góngora (the Cosmographer of New Spain), and write and publish the finest known poetry of the Spanish colonial empire in the period to 1821, as well as some plays and "Christmas carols."

In the year before her pen is silenced and less than three before she falls victim to the plague while caring for her sick Sisters, Sor Juana attests to a legal document concerning her convent’s economic investments. She was the nunnery’s contadora (bookkeeper). By way of horribly evocative contrast, opposite her signature on the facing page is that of Francisco Aguiar y Seijas, Archbishop of Mexico, the misogynist who caused her to give up her writing and quasi-secular ways.

Able to bully the most gifted member of his religious community only following the return to Spain of her last viceregal patron and protector, the Marquis de la Laguna, Aguiar y Seijas applied increasing pressure to Sor Juana and the prioress of her Hieronymite convent. It took him from 1688 until 1693 to put “la decima Musa” “in her place.”

Documents signed by the polymath Sor Juana are very rare and highly sought after; this one desirably shows the trust her Sisters placed in her. The pairing of her signature with her arch enemy's is chilling and visually impactful.

•  In very good condition.

MEXICO is one of our great specialties.
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This also appears in the HISPANIC
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13th-Century Law Suit — 16th-Century Copy

•  Late-16th-century copy of a mid-13th-century legal decision in a law suit that pitched the town of Almudevar against Pedro Cornelio, Miguel de Gurrea, and others of the town of Gurrea over rights to wood cutting, pasturing, and other rural concerns. Click the image for an enlargement.

•  Written in a very clear legal notarial hand, in sepia ink. Very good.  (27071)

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        FINANCE / ECONOMICS,  click here.
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Their Judgment: FARCICAL Process, But
Enforceable Policy . . .

•  The official, signed report of the Presidential Committee appointed to investigate the just-concluded "treaty of peace, commerce and navigation" with Great Britain. The report observes: "The present treaty is, letter for letter, the same as that concluded in 1837 in Lima by the Proctor of the Peruvian-Bolivian Confederation, and the same, also, bearing the date of 30 May 1838 that the Extraordinary Bolivian Congress (meeting in Cochabamba) approved" (our translation). With five members dissenting, the committee decides that the method of congressional approval, though "farcical," was legal and binding.

Bearing signatures, among others, of Pedro Buitrago, Narciso Dulón, Eusebio Gutiérrez, M. de la Cruz Méndez, José M. Dalence, and Manuel Sagarnaga.

•  Very good condition. Two small tears at folds, not affecting text.

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TO Part II . . .

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