Abstract This article demonstrates how the Jesuit procurators of the Viceroyalty of Peru knit a network of relationships with various actors in colonial society and served as mediators for a constant exchange of influences, objects, and practices, not just locally but also on a transatlantic scale. Rather than isolating the figure of procurators traveling to Rome, this approach addresses them along with local college procurators. The cases analyzed are those of Miguel Garrido (1691–1779), procurator of the college of Cusco (starting in 1729) and then of the college of San Pablo in Lima (from 1743 until the expulsion of the Society of Jesus in 1767); José de Aguilar (who died in Panama in 1708 on his way to Rome) and José Pérez de Ugarte (1675–1734), procurators provincial of the Society of Jesus in Peru; and Miguel de Viñas, procurator general in Chile, whose trip to Europe took place between 1692 and 1697.
Abstract The Ginori family established an international trade network from Florence in the second half of the seventeenth century through members operating in Spanish and Portuguese cities. Posted to Lisbon, Lorenzo Ginori (1647–1710) served as consul of the Florentine nation and as agent of Cosimo III de’ Medici (1642–1723; r.1670–1723), facilitating the exchange of artworks and luxury goods with Jesuits of the Portuguese empire. Drawing on unpublished correspondence, this article examines how Jesuit procurators and other members of the Society of Jesus participated in informal mercantile and diplomatic networks linking Europe, Asia, and the Americas. By analyzing exchanges involving figures such as the procurators António de Melo (1610–79) and Pedro Zuzarte (1617–88), the study argues that Jesuit agency extended beyond institutional and missionary frameworks into elite artistic patronage and gift diplomacy. Approaching Jesuit history through non-Jesuit archives, the article proposes a relational and decentralized model of early modern Jesuit cultural circulation.
