ABSTRACT
In 1746, the Milanese traveller Lorenzo Boturini published Idea de una nueva historia general de América septentrional. Boturini based this upon Mesoamerican manuscripts collected in New Spain. The authorities, however, confiscated his museo because he had entered the territory without permission, and had collected funds for the coronation of the Virgin of Guadalupe. In addition to the part Boturini played in the history of Mesoamerican collecting, he played a remarkable role in the history of the reception of G. Vico's Scienza nuova. This chapter challenges the model of influence often applied to explain (away) Boturini's historiographical work—even by decolonial and revisionist historians like Mignolo and Cañizares-Esguerra. It examines the relation between Vico's historical “paradigm” (Cañizares) and Boturini's praise of Mesoamerican script and historiography (Mignolo). Does the “influence” from Vico explain this praise of the history of the “other”, as both humanists and decolonial scholars like Mignolo appear to assume? Did they simply share a historiographical paradigm? Or did other genres of historiography and knowledge practices—like the collecting practices of antiquarianism and the attempt to document the apparitions of Guadalupe for Rome—also impact Boturini's history and the recognition of Mesoamerican images and sources this was premised on?
