Introduction: Conversion, Cities and Theatre in the Early Modern World

Abstract

On the morning of 3 February 1631, the people of Lima awoke to discover that their main square had been transformed overnight into an elaborate allegory of the city of Troy. In addition to offering an unprecedented dramatic spectacle, this remarkable feat of civic theatricality provided a fitting metaphor for the multiple transformations experienced by the city in the century that followed its founding by Francisco Pizarro in 1535....