Before and after the 1746 Lima earthquake and tsunami: between scientific understanding and cultural imaginaries in the Hispanic world

On October 28, 1746, an earthquake and tsunami destroyed the viceregal city of Lima and the port of Callao. The impact of that disaster on the Hispanic world was intertwined with the advancement of science and the understanding of nature. Various proposals from a progressive and academicist clergy t...

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Bibliographic Details
Author: Alvarez Ponce, Victor Emilio
Format: article
Status:Published version
Publication Date:2022
Country:Perú
Institution:Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú
Repository:Revistas - Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú
Language:Spanish
OAI Identifier:oai:ojs.pkp.sfu.ca:article/26041
Online Access:http://revistas.pucp.edu.pe/index.php/revistaira/article/view/26041
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:Lima
1746
Tsunamis
Earthquakes
Cultural imaginary
Seismology
Terremotos
Imaginario cultural
Sismología
Description
Summary:On October 28, 1746, an earthquake and tsunami destroyed the viceregal city of Lima and the port of Callao. The impact of that disaster on the Hispanic world was intertwined with the advancement of science and the understanding of nature. Various proposals from a progressive and academicist clergy tried to explain these phenomena. However, the society and a traditional faction of the Church in the face of these vulnerabilities reinforced, through fear, their own mechanisms of divine protection. This article proposes a parallel development between scientific understanding and cultural imaginaries about these catastrophes in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in the Western world.