Manila Hospitalaria en 1725: “Un abreviado Océano de devoto regocijo”

Abstract

On November 28, 1725, the Brothers Hospitallers of Manila organized solemn festivities on the occasion of the bull granted by Pope Innocent XIII on the commemoration of the transfer of the remains of St. John of God from the convent of La Victoria to the main hospital of the order in Granada in 1664. A previously unpublished print contains the sermon preached for the occasion and the chronicle of the procession and description of the ephemeral arch erected on the main façade of his temple in the Philippine capital. Through this account it is possible to reconstruct the complex symbolic program of paintings and texts deployed around the virtues of the saint, which became an effective mechanism of propaganda in those territorial confines.