Abstract

LORETO LOPEZ, Rosalva. “About the Size of a Fingernail”. Relics, Devotions and Mysticism in a City in New Spain. 17^th-century Puebla de los Ángeles. Relac. Estud. hist. soc. [online]. 2017, vol.38, n.150, pp.47-92. ISSN 2448-7554.  https://doi.org/10.24901/rehs.v38i150.294.

The first convent of the Carmelite Order for women in the New World was founded in 1604. Among the reasons for its rapid consolidation and successful expansion in New Spain [Mexico] was the need to create cloistered communities for women of Spanish descent, but the quick beatification of Teresa de Jesus in 1614 was a second important contributing factor. Four years later, a relic from Santa Teresa’s arm arrived at the convent in Puebla, and fourteen nuns experienced visions inspired by it. These events were recorded in the 22-page manuscript analyzed in this study, whose descriptions reaffirmed theological ideas related to Christocentrism, framed by mysticism and the aesthetics of the early Baroque period.

Keywords : nuns; religiosity; emotional communities.

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