“Parece imitaban los indios a los antiguos”. Especies vegetales y bebidas del Nuevo Mundo en las obras de Juan de Cárdenas y Antonio de León Pinelo

Abstract

Early modernity witnessed the emergence of a complex network of ideas and knowledge about the New World. Travelers, chroniclers and missionaries developed a travel literature about American natural and cultural alterity. The present writing seeks to contribute to the knowledge of this process through the analysis of two treaties: Problemas y secretos maravillosos de las indias of Juan de Cardenas, published in 1591 and Cuestion moral: si el chocolate quebranta el ayuno eclesiastico of the chronicler of the Indies Antonio de Leon Pinelo, published in 1636. The interpretative axis proposed to approach these works is the study of the intellectual devices displayed by the authors, in relation to the drinks and plants of the New World.