La fundación de Lima y la fundación de una nueva mitografía americana

Rodrigo de Valdes’ poem “Fundación y grandezas de la muy noble y leal ciudad de los Reyes
de Lima” (1687) has as objective to bring up Greek and Latin mythology to the “New World” –
recreating mythography – with the purpose to found a new mythology which consolidates the
new conquered territories and to serve as political and moral speech to support the new
American reality.
In this piece of literary work, Valdes offers a vision of Lima based upon his feelings, sensations
and above all his eagerness to establish it as the place where “worthies” live, whose symbolic
father is Pizarro – presented as the conquest hero – and whose major glory is Rosa, Lima’s saint.
Thus, Lima is meant to represent the perfect city, which allows the practice of virtue and to
accomplish common welfare; description seemed as necessary to build up the idea of the New
World as a continuum of Spain: the major empire of Christianity.
In this way, the aim of this article’s author is to examine this poem about Lima’s foundation, as a
foundational speech whose objective is to create a new mythography which is able to
reinterpret the Latin heritage from an American perspective