The Three times Crowned villa: From the myth of paradise city to that of the Rotten one

Abstract

The compares two poems whose main theme is the city of Lima: while one praises it, the other despises it. So Rodrigo de Valdés in his corographic poem Corográfico Fundación y grandezas de la muy noble y muy leal ciudad de los Reyes de Lima presents an idealized vision of an edenic city that was founded to become the birthplace of Rosa de Santa María, the first saint of the New World. In opposition to this vision, Esteban de Terralla and Landa in his satirical poem Lima por dentro y por fuera, shows a negative view of Lima, the city that rejects him, in which he does not find his space. Among the subjects compared are those linked to the viceregal administration of the Habsburgs and the Bourbons and the characteristic cosmopolitanism of the big cities.