Counters, Namers, and Processers

Abstract

Agostinho de Santa Maria (1642–1728), a Descalced Augustinian friar from Portugal, spent the last three decades of his life taking inventory of sites dedicated to Mary. Jesuits such as Wilhelm Gumppenberg, Francisco de Florencia, and António Cordeiro also produced encyclopedic compilations of Marian sanctuaries across the world. Their projects suggest that mission names counted in the early modern period because they were actually counted. This chapter begins with counters including the Santa Maria, Gumppenberg, de Florencia, and Cordeiro. This assortment of atlas makers, inventory compilers, and biographers shows the diversity and quantity of individuals engaged in the counting project of the seventeenth century. It was these counters who fixed and publicized the notion that the spread of Loreto was collective and intentional. The chapter then turns to some of the namers featured by the above writers. Finally, it examines Jesuit records that point to the Inka of Cuzco and the Monquí of California, whose processions in honor of Loreto brought the name currency and freshness.