Rothrock, Orville Joseph

The collection consists of Rothrock's unpublished manuscript, "Dignitas Non Moritur: Ruben's Vision of the Luxembourg Palace of Maria de'Medici" and his bibliography of books in Spanish Colonial NM with full citations, title pages, and related material.

"Dignitas Non Moritur: Ruben's Vision of the Luxembourg Palace of Maria de'Medici" compares the decors of honorary funerals staged by the Medici grand dukes from 1574-1612 in the interior architecture of San Lorenzo in Florence with Rubens' paintings for Maria de'Medici from 1622-1630 in the interior architecture of the Luxembourg Palace in Paris. The decors in San Lorenzo were the source of Maria de'Medici's wish for a chronological cycle of biographical paintings of her life and deeds. They were then the source of Rubens' activating the cycle into a theatrically painted ceremony of death as divine renewal. His paintings for the Palace revolved around the painting, "The Death of the King and Proclamation of the Regency." Rubens added a further dimension of transcendence not derived from the San Lorenzo decors. He made the life history of Maria into an allegory of conduct by the Olympian gods.

Bibliography of Books in Spanish Colonial New Mexico, 1598-1776 contains 483 titles, and includes full citations of first edition title pages and notes. A typescript proposal for an exhibition at the Palace of the Governors, Santa Fe, of books in the library of Don Diego de Vargas is also included.

Note: Descriptive information provided by Orville J. Rothrock.