Lorenzo Boturini Bernaducci

Lorenzo Boturini Benaducci
Born	Lorenzo Boturini Benaducci c. 1702 Como, Italy
Died	c. 1753 age 51 Madrid, Spain
Occupation	historian, antiquary, and ethnographer

Lorenzo Boturini Benaducci (1702, Como, Italy – 1753, Madrid) was a historian, antiquary and ethnographer of New Spain, the Spanish Empire's colonial dominions in North America.

Born in Italy of noble parentage, Lorenzo Boturini Benaducci studied in Milan and lived in Trieste and Vienna. He was a knight of the Holy Roman Empire. Forced to flee Austria because of the war with Spain, Boturini arrived in Spain via England and Portugal. In Madrid he met the Condesa de Santibáñez, oldest daughter of the Condesa de Moctezuma. The mother authorized him to collect a pension due her, as a descendant of the Aztec Emperor Moctezuma II, from the royal treasury in New Spain.

Boturini went to New Spain in 1736, where he remained eight years. During those years he assembled a vast collection of paintings, maps, manuscripts and native codices. He copied more than 500 pre-Columbian inscriptions and made his own drawings of monuments and sculptures, and he investigated the history of the apparition of the Virgin of Guadalupe on the hill of Tepeyac. He traveled widely and on his travels brought together the largest collection of Mexican antiquities assembled to that time by a European.

Not only did he intend to write the history of the Virgin of Guadalupe, but he also had plans to crown her image with a gold crown. For that purpose he sought donations from the bishops and from the public. This brought him to the attention of the colonial government, which was suspicious of the motives of a foreigner making this proposal.

On 2 June 1743 after an investigation, the recently arrived viceroy, Pedro Cebrián, 5th Count of Fuenclara, had him imprisoned and impounded his collection. He was accused of entering New Spain without license from the Council of the Indies and of introducing papal documents without a royal permit.

...
Wikipedia