At present, this collection is dedicated to the illustrated manuscript Nueva corónica y buen gobierno (The First New Chronicle and Good Government), written by the Quechua nobleman Felipe Guamán Poma de Ayala around 1615 in Peru. Written mostly in Spanish, the manuscript was originally intended for king Philip III of Spain, for it denounces the injustices and cruelty suffered by Indigenous subjects under Spanish colonial rule. Because the manuscript was never published, the year and locale of creation are approximate.

This work’s importance stems from the myriad of themes it touches on, including Indigenous spatial symbolism, the Quechua and Aymara languages, and Inca society at large. In the illustration “The Eighth Group Pucllacoc,” for example, we see a child, belonging to the eighth of the ten possible groups to which men belonged in the Inca Empire. This group was responsible for helping their parents with younger siblings, and the child pictured is playing with a sling and stone. The image titled “The Fourth Age of the Indians, Auca Runa,” illustrates the Auca Runa people, a war-mongering group who strategically settled in high areas to protect themselves. “August, Month of Turning the Soil” demonstrates the ritual of plowing fields during August, with a caption that reads “tienpo de labransa hayllinmi ynca” (“time for plowing, Inca farmer’s dance”).

The ambitious length and scope of Nueva corónica (1200 pages, nearly 400 illustrations) renders it a unique resource that can be found in its entirety at the Royal Danish Library website.