After returning to his Italian monastery in 1770, a  Capuchin friar named Ilarione da Bergamo wrote an account of his  transatlantic crossing and five-year residence in colonial Mexico.    Sent to Mexico to collect alms for missionary work, Friar Ilarione  lived four years in the silver mining camp of Real del Monte, fifty  miles north of the vice regal capital. Ilarione relates how he secured  silver donations from the miners, describes mining and refining  techniques, and writes of a bitter and widespread labor strike.    Ilarione also spent a number of months in Mexico City. He reveals the  squalor, crime, and other perils of life in the capital, and describes  details of daily life, including the public baths, medical practices,  cockfights, bullfights, birds, native plants, popular food, and  religious rituals.    In this recently discovered manuscript, published here for the first  time in English, editors Robert Ryal Miller and William J. Orr  identify obscure references, translate Nahuatl words, amplify details,  and verify historical events. Daily Life in Colonial Mexico is  a welcome addition to the firsthand literature of New Spain.

Daily Life in Colonial Mexico: The Journey of Friar Ilarione Da Bergamo, 1761-1768 (American Exploration and Travel Series) PDF

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