|
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Nineteenth-century Chile produced great historians, who easily passed from the Biblioteca Nacional in Santiago or the Archivo de las Indias in Seville to national politics and international diplomacy. Because of the quality and quantity of historical writing, as well as the political prominence of many historians, modern scholars have suggested that history was given a place of honour in Chile's culture environment. However high history's esteem may have been, it did not translate into a stable historical museum, several attempts to found one notwithstanding. Moreover, the majority of historians themselves stayed away from representing history as material culture preserved for the public memory. This essay discusses the various museums and displays of historical content in Santiago during the late nineteenth century, with a view to understanding what constituted Chilean history and why history museums did not stand time's harsh examination. In order to collect items for a museum of history, a consensus needed to be reached on what items of material culture have or can be given value and what will foster sentiments of patriotism and nationalism. Museums create the heritage necessary to provide the longevity of historical experiences required of nations. Each 'thing' had to be invested with meaning, and its placement in the rarefied, quiet, solitude of the museum began the process of making an item into a relic of the nation. Certainly Chile had particular items that were invested with the hopes and history of the nation, but during the nineteenth century their shrines were temporary. The first and only history exhibition in Santiago was the brainchild of Benjamín Vicuña Mackenna, mayor of Santiago between 1872 and 1873 as well as a prolific and well-respected historian. Vicuña alone among his colleagues pursued material culture with as much gusto as he collected archival material. During the 1870s, he dedicated his efforts to the preservation of relics from Chile's colonial past, which he feared were in danger of decaying in oblivion. In various texts discussing why he organised the exhibition, he elaborated these concerns. Santiago in the 1870s was changing from a colonial city to the modern, fast-paced capital of a forward-looking nation. The process included physical destruction of items of a venerable age. Vicuña Mackenna lamented the loss of the delicate metal grills made by unknown artisans which were sold off as scrap iron and the woven wall hangings that became horse blankets in haciendas. Vicuña believed that a general lack of historic consciousness allowed for this short-sighted destruction. Vicuña sponsored the Esposición de Coloniaje in 1873 to remind Chileans of the colonial past left behind. Vicuña believed that he could change perceptions of Chile's colonial era through an exhibition. 'An exhibition that would inspire, if not liking and affection, respect at least for the objects which have characterised the diverse phases of our society'. Furthermore, it was unquestionable that the search [for], classification [of] and wise and rational comments on the material vestiges which come to one epoch from another, is one of the most accurate and brilliant guides that can accompany the philosopher and the historian in their businesses... the indigenous civilization of America has been uncovered and reconstructed through excavating its utensils and gods. [These items] demonstrate how admirable was the progress of a nation and how rudimentary was that of a neighbour through these examples of their industry, their religion and their domestic arts. (Vicuña Mackenna 1872-1873: 346)For Vicuña Makenna, Chile was a nation rooted in a Hispanic past - a past rich with culture and value. Display of this past would demonstrate to visitors that great progress had been made in little time. Chile had been a poor colony of territory held for military purposes. Yet, in the creation of the new nation, too much of the past had been sacrificed. As he wrote to the exhibition president, he knew 'how many precious relics of art the colonial epoch has left us and with what speed the few objects of use are dispersed to the four winds of scorn...' He continued writing that, the habitual indifference of our race and the indifference for the old have produced in our habits the speed of political and social movements, charged with, in the space of half a century since 1820, putting a new people where before had existed another completely different. (Vicuña Mackenna 1872-1873: 342-3)Implicit in his desire to display colonial material culture was a criticism of the image of Chile as a nation without a past. Vicuña believed that the past served both as a yard stick and a pedological tool. His respect for the Hispanic roots of Chilean society contrasted with the tendency among Chile's elite to emulate French and English economics and culture. Moreover, his respect for the colonial past was singular when other public figures, like Alberto Blest Gana, historian, novelist and former ambassador to France, who believed that 'cultural vestiges of colonial life were inhibiting Chile's material and political strides'. (Blest Gana quoted in Sommer 1991: 248) Perhaps historians' general lack of interest in public history was due to their deprecation of Chile's colonial past. For them, that past was a legacy which hindered progress, while for Vicuña Mackenna it was a means to demonstrate the progress undertaken since Independence. The organization of the exhibition fell to a committee among whose duties were included collecting items of interest for display. Committee members, including General Marcos Maturana and Ramón Subercaseaux, gathered together religious artifacts, domestic items, carriages, jewelry, pre-Colombian artifacts, genealogical items and firearms. These wealthy men rifled through their own collections for material to offer and then, in each provincial capital, enlisted the mayor and local citizens to find materials. The exhibition president, Eyzaguirre, himself came from 'an old and distinguished family' and called upon relatives and intimates to contribute material. The display was one of family items, like the portraits that were 'objects of affection and cherished relics from home'. (El Ferrocarril 18 Sept. 1873: 3) As the elite were related to each other by blood or marriage alliance, the exhibition really was one of a domestic interior. The committee was not bringing together disparate objects to create a collection, rather it was reconstructing something shattered by time. Vicuña Mackenna, using language that would have resonated with modern men of the nineteenth century, compared their work to scientific investigation: As the naturalist who, with the mutilated remains reduced to dust and the fragments of beings that belonged to other epochs... is able to, with wisdom and patience, reconstruct a perfect skeleton and deduce from... these bones the organic life... and even including the peaceful or ferocious habits of the beast to whom [the bones] belonged, like this we could resuscitate the colonial era with its narrowness and its generous opulence, its moral nostalgia and its poverty of means, and exhibit its skeleton dressed in its own, rich finery and deteriorating rags before the light of civilization which today revitalises us and increases our stature. (Vicuña Mackenna 1872-1873: 343)As scientists, then, these historians made sense of colonial relics by removing them from cluttered domestic spaces to order and exhibit them. Moreover, like the naturalists or anthropologists he admired, Vicuña Mackenna was willing to include indigenous artifacts pre-dating the conquest as long as 'the authenticity of their origin is confirmed' (Vicuña Mackenna 1872-1873: 343) This language of science sprang from the social and economic prestige of positivism and the conviction that all societal problems could be resolved if only approached from a scientific perspective. The urban elite, whose support Vicuña Mackenna needed to make the exhibition a success, were among the most enthusiastic proponents of positivism, among other French social and cultural imports.
While his committee and its aides scoured the country for historic relics, Vicuña not only concentrated on the task of finding previously hidden history, but he also ordered the manufacture of colonial artifacts. Because nothing was to be included in the exhibition that had not been previously investigated carefully researched for its true origins, the governors' series of portraitswas put together partially through meticulous re-creation of historic works.
The portraits replaced a series of seventy paintings that had been destroyed during the Battle of Chacabuco (See figure 1). Vicuña commissioned students trained at the Academia de Pintura to recreate these lost works. For the students, male and female alike, the series offered a chance for prominent display and national recognition of their work. A public competition was held in January 1874 to determine the best of the series and these were given monetary prizes. Certainly, in re-creating this series, some historic liberties were taken. Each painting in the governors' series is accompanied by a caption providing a brief description of the life of the governor. At the foot of his portrait, Francisco Casimiro Marco del Pont is described as a 'cruel coward'.
The paintings were an opportunity to teach an uninitiated public about colonial history, clearly delineating the heroes and the villains. It seems likely that Vicuña Mackenna himself composed the captions. The exhibition, which opened on 17 September 1873, in the Palacio de los Gobernadores located on the Plaza de Armas, combined pedagogy, 'useful' history and entertainment. Visitors were transported from modern Santiago to a time psychologically rather than chronologically distant. Visitors to the exhibit were engaged in tourism of the past. Tickets to the event were sold in an imported carriage, staffed by a 'legitimate black man from Lima' (Catálogo de la Esposicion del Coloniaje 1873: v) who also acted as a guide. Importing a man of African ancestry simultaneously distanced Chile from Africa and its own slave-owning past while associating Peru with racial mixing and the assumptions of barbarity therein included. Other witnesses to history present at the exhibition were survivors from the battles of Independence on hand to regale their juniors with stories of bravery and heroism, while showing off their wounds and their medals. Finally, Patagonians and Fueginians were brought in from the southern territories to be displayed. See Figure 2The theatricality of the event provoked criticism. Fanor Velasco, for instance, found the exhibit lacking in seriousness or methodological rigor. It certainly had its freak show aspect. One newspaper article recounted that, The same Tuesday will be exhibited in the exhibition the Fueginian cannibal indian, the same who, with two of his type from Tierra del Fuego, ate a boatswain and three sailors from a schooner that ran aground and sank a little while ago in Tierra de Fuego. Almost all of the crew perishing, victims to the voracity of the Fueginians, hungry for human meat. [The governor Mr. Viel has] captured the indian who now finds himself in this capital, send by that authority. Feeling somewhat sick the above mentioned Fueginian said that he was a bit swollen, it was proposed yesterday to give him a pharmaceutical remedy, but he rejected it, adding "what would make me feel fine is a little child, raw or grilled, whichever would be better". (El Mercurio 23 Sept. 1873: 2-3) The exhibition became one of the favourite strolls of Santiago's society' and 3,000 people had visited in just over a week, while catalogue sales at about the same number suggest an educated crowd. Nonetheless, exhibitors worried about the 'unwashed'. For instance, when particular jewels were to be displayed precautions were taken against 'hands that [are] too profane'. (El Mercurio 23 Sept. 1873: 2) Vicuña Mackenna, however, sought both the high and the low of the capital as visitors. His expectation was that 'sufficient number of valuable garments' would capture the 'informed attention of people of study and wake up the vulgar [person's] appetite for the curious'. (Vicuña Mackenna 1872-1873: 347) Thus, the exhibition was to be an integrated social space, as were museums in Europe at that time. Museums in Europe were designed as sites of moralization, where the working class could learn appropriate public behaviour from the middle classes while they all gazed at uplifting art. There is little indication that museums in Chile intended as a whole to serve this moralizing function, but certainly some exhibitions, including the colonial one, did. At the same time, the exhibition was also to be a place of study and research, not just a space where the 'vulgar' would be entertained by looking at old people's scars.
An informative companion for the literate visitor, the exhibition catalogue served to educate and direct the visitors from left to right and room to room. Here was the sideboard in need of repair, here were the hundreds of portraits and the curios (like the statues of blacks from 'Abyssinia' holding plates of gold).
Military artifacts were also present, including swords belonging to O'Higgins and flags from the Battle of Maipó.
Here was the declaration of independence and the original flag of independence. The catalogue did more than guide visitors from room to room, but attempted to situate the artifacts inside their historic context through descriptions of an item's past. In fact, the catalogue was supposed to become a historical document in its own right, allowing study of the colonial era in 'its deepest core, in its densest darkness'. At the same time, the introduction to the catalogue is deliberately playful and invites visitors to suspend their disbelief for the duration of their visit. The introduction ends: As we have promised to be discrete... here we stop and we leave the curious gentleman and discrete lady to wander among the two thousand plus objects reunited to celebrate the "good times of Chile" with a dance of... silk stockings and short pants. (Catálogo de la Esposicion del Coloniaje 1873: vii)Exhibit visitors, without ever leaving Santiago, were transported to another time and place: Santiago, the capital of a colonial backwater. For all of its levity in presentation, the exhibition depicted nationhood as the fulfillment of a colonial project, while glorifying the present and reinforcing class distinctions. For the elite, the exhibition was a public display of personal wealth and illustrious ancestry. Their furniture and paintings had been re-conceptualised as national treasures. The exhibition also brought the populace into the parlor, to view the luxuries of a past civilization that they could claim as their own now that it was national heritage. Class divisions were naturalised and given the weight of historical precedent through comparison between the material culture of the elite and the poor. Gender distinctions were also reinforced, as all things 'feminine' were grouped into one room: the 'bazaar of the charitable societies, that is, the exposition of beauty, grace and charity'. In one sentence, the catalogue summed up what it was to be a Chilean - and elite - woman: generous, beautiful, graceful and separated from the public world of politics and history. The growing public role of middle-class women had no place in the exhibition and their advancement was certainly not used as a measure of female progress. Women's increasing role had no representation in the colonial exhibition. Although part of society, women remained in their separate sphere. For instance, the hall contained 'all the objects agreeable to women, and as a consequence, there are also objects agreeable to men' like precious jewels. The same hall was honoured with the presence of ladies from the charitable institutions of Santiago. There, society's prettiest eligible girls and most elegant married women sold hot punch, waffles, alfajores and chocolate - food from colonial times available at 'moderate' prices. The proceeds went to benefit the poor. (Catálogo de la Esposicion del Coloniaje 1873: vi)
Even if colonial culture was out of fashion, the exhibit appears to have been popular and successful. Vicuña Mackenna believed the exhibition had been 'training and a foundation' for future history displays. Material culture had been summoned 'to the field of investigation not only as the most untiring support for the true history but also as the greatest and most brilliant propagator'. Approving critics wished that the collection would remain on permanent display and when the exhibition had barely opened Vicuña announced plans to create a museum of Chile's colonial past. When the exhibition was over, a part of the large collection moved to an old prison and fortress at the Cerro de Santa Lucia.
Use of the old building on the hill for a history museum (opened in 1874) was appropriate as Pedro de Valdivia had famously founded the city atop the Cerro de Santa Lucia, as depicted in Pedro Lira's painting.
The Cerro de Santa Lucia, today synonymous with Santiago, was another of Vicuña's extravagant inspirations. He landscaped the rocky wasteland in the middle of the city, turning it into a park with winding paths, fanciful constructions and vista points. The newly-landscaped hill was inaugurated during the independence festivities in 1874.
Of all the improvements to Santa Lucia Hill, including numerous paths, plazas and an observatory, the Hidalgo Castle,
housing the museum, was the 'most important monument'. (El Mercurio 2 Oct. 1874: 3) The museum itself housed paintings, colonial relics, furniture, busts and crests.
The rooms had the appearance of a slightly over-crowded late nineteenth-century living space, with only the items under glass providing for a museum atmosphere. Photographs show the library and the museum itself, although the only obvious distinguishing factor between the two joined rooms is that the library has a few bookshelves and more table space. Connecting the library to the museum itself made the museum's space an extension of the library and a place of serious study. Vicuña Mackenna wrote a brief tour of the museum chronologically by material starting 'with the aboriginal group, the first in order of epochs'. Notice Vicuña's rooting of indigenous people firmly in the distant past, though they remained in some sense a founding people of the Chilean nation. The collection of indigenous artefacts was poor not because of the museum's lack of effort but because Chileans did not value these items and thus did not preserve them. The collection of arms from the conquest was better and the collection from the independence period was the most 'complete'. Forty-two portraits from the governors' series (costing 7,000 pesos) were housed in the museum as was a bell cast in Chile in 1808 that was all that survived after fire destroyed the Iglesia de la Compañía. A Carlos Wood painting of Santa Lucia, dating from the 1850s, provided a perspective on the transformation of the rocky hill in the city's centre. (El Mercurio 2 Oct. 1874: 3) The concept of collections as being finite, as possible to 'complete', was part of the ideology of museums, at least in Chile. Obviously, the flotsam and jetsam of the independence period could fill room after room (or all of a two-room museum), but Vicuña Mackenna ignored that fact, preferring to suggest that this medal and that sword together become a complete representation of the period by virtue of being in the museum. Although Vicuña Mackenna hoped that the museum, 'with the centuries, has to be the Acropolis of knowledge in our land', (Vicuña Mackenna 1875: 274) with his death, the history museum closed and the collection was dispersed. Much of what had pertained to the Museo Nacional was put into storage or loaned to other museums in Chile. The rapid disappearance of the museum after Vicuña's death suggests that he failed to encourage a respect for history and foster a historical consciousness, as he had originally hoped. During the 1880s and 1890s, the history displays or museums for which records survive were all related to Chile's military. Vicuña's far-reaching exhibition, which included domestic items, clothing, religious artifacts and family trees, offered too broad a vision of history. Vicuña Mackenna presented a social history more suited to modern historical interests. Nineteenth-century Chilean historians sought 'useful' (Woll 1982) history and military exploits were more useful to a young nation than kitchen utensils. Chile was born through conquest, gained independence through combat and forced independence on Peru with Argentina. The nation continued to be bellicose during the nineteenth century. As much as Chileans prided themselves on being a stable nation with a democratic political system, armed conflict and conquest were integral both domestically and when engaged in international conflict well before the War of the Pacific (1879-1884). An army rebellion had ended the life of dictator Diego Portales. War with the Peruvian-Bolivian Confederation in 1836-1839 established Chile as a continental power. Civil wars between 1851 and 1859 ended with the firm subordination of military to political authority. War with Spain followed and then began the final offensive against the Araucanians. As Ricardo Krebs notes, throughout the nineteenth century, each generation of Chileans had its war. Thus, warfare in the nineteenth century was the most potent agent for the creation of the Chilean nation. The numerous, short-lived historical exhibitions concentrated on Chile's bellicose history. Formalising this role, in 1876 Minister of Public Education Miguel Luis Amunátegui ordered a history gallery opened at the National Museum. The collection on display included portraits of 'notable' Chileans and flags taken from the Spanish during the independence wars. The 1878 museum catalogue notes that the gallery of historical portraits... is formed by the portraits of the presidents of Chile and by others (Queen Isabella, Christopher Columbus, Pedro de Valdivia, Claude Gay, etc.) and a series of the Incas of Peru. These portraits cannot be recommended for either artistic merit nor for historical exactitude. For example, in one of them is Caupolican, the... Araucanian cacique, carrying a mace of the type which we have found in the ethnographic room [among the items from] the Viti islands. (Guia del Museo Nacional de Chile en Septiembre de 1878: 40)The catalogue, more dismissive than descriptive, nonetheless provides some important clues to the collection. The 'presidents' of Chile were part of the governors' series that Vicuña had commissioned for the 1873 exhibition. The Gay portrait had been in the Museo Nacional since its founding. The rest of the items are of uncertain precedence. None of the portraits mentioned, however, specifically represented 'Chileans', rather the subjects were Spanish, Italian, French or Araucanian. Yet their faces formed an essential part of Chile's history. The works in the gallery link Chile not only to a European past, but, interestingly, to an Inca past. For as much as 'white' Chile claimed superiority to Peru and Bolivia, an indigenous imperial background was a strong foundation from which to build national sentiment. This foundation was particularly important when Chile, unlike Peru and Bolivia, had no glorious colonial - much less - indigenous past. Rather, Chile mined its past for values or characteristics to glorify, such as love of independence and bravery, rather than historic moments. From the time the Santa Lucia museum closed until the opening of the current history museum in 1911, there was no consensus of which items were of historical value and where they belonged. As the nation's leading museum, the Museo Nacional was the obvious location for the artifacts, but curator Rodolfo Amando Philippi was inconsistent regarding which items of historical interest he allowed displayed in what was essentially his personal museum. He was determined to keep his museum dedicated to natural history, while believing that it was also the logical site for historical items of particular importance or contemporary items that posterity would value. The independence era was honoured when the 'Hall of Arms', decreed by President Aníbal Pinto, opened with examples of regional weapons, and weapons taken from the enemy. Curator Philippi reasoned that the 'curious objects' would become 'trophies' and reminders of the War of the Pacific, thus meriting a place in the natural history museum. (Philippi Mar. 1881: 92-3) In 1882, Philippi reported that the museum had acquired various historical items which had 'enriched' the collection. 'They are a bit of the flag that Pizarro brought to America' and 'a number of objects found on the Montalvan hacienda, property of the illustrious general don Bernardo O'Higgins'. (Philippi Nov. 1882: 510) Philippi's narrow vision of what history was only allowed for the relics of great men or events. Contemporary relics associated with great events were also welcome in the National Museum. The remains of navigational equipment and three silver spoons taken from the wreck of the Esmeralda were purchased for the national museum as 'precious relics of the heroic ship'. (Philippi Feb.: 1888) Flags taken during the War of the Pacific from Bolivian and Peruvian battalions were also donated to the museum. A corner of the 'Military Museum'
While the photograph is not dated, the painting is of Arturo Prat, martyred war hero of the War of the Pacific. Courtesy of the Museo Histórico Nacional. It is not clear which museum the photograph represents.
Considering the centrality of warfare to Chilean identity, it is not surprising that there were three different military museums founded in the late nineteenth century. The Museo de Armas Antiguas was founded in 1879 at the order of the Minister of War, Basilio Urrutia, just at the outset of the War of the Pacific. As already noted, two years later, during the war, President Pinto ordered a sala de armas to be opened in the Museo Nacional.
It is unclear how long the display lasted, but the 1898 Museo Nacional catalogue mentions no historical displays at all. In 1893, Enrique Phillips opened a military museum in the Arsenales de Guerra, on Avenida Blanco. Finally, another military museum was ordered opened in the military park and armoury in 1894. The 'Sección Museo Militar' was to collect and care for 'military objects that have some historic value or that are judged as useful for the training of the militia'. (El Mercurio 29 Oct. 1894: 2-3) Two decades were to pass before evidence of another military museum emerges. A 1909 catalogue attests to the existence of another military museum. The collection discussed in the catalogue repeats the list of the flags and guns displayed in earlier exhibitions. Some of the items, such as Spanish flags which had been housed in the Museo de Armas Antiguas, were in fact taken from the earlier museums. The catalogue offers the history of each flag, which then becomes a means to discuss modern Chilean history. For instance, one battalion - Buim 1o de Unea - contributed to the formation of the forts and roads along the Malleco line, including the complete pacification of the Araucanians, where now are shown off the thriving provinces of Malleco and Cautin(Catálogo del Museo Military de Chile 1909: 13).Another battalion, during the battle of Tarapacá in the War of the Pacific, was completely annihilated, losing their standard that remained buried under a mountain of cadavers including their brave commander... this standard which shows 31 bullet holes, was found... in the Church of San Ramon de Tacna, after the battle of the same name, and was solemnly turned over in a military parade of the whole Chilean army, in the Lurin camp.(Catálogo del Museo Military de Chile 1909: 14)This standard had been left for dead with the dead, captured by the enemy and then rescued by its rightful possessors to be taken back in glory to Chile. By supreme decree the standard's name was changed to 'Battalion Tacna 2o de línea' to reflect its importance. Many of the standards in the museum had been used until the civil war of 1891. Standards that represented battalions on both sides of the war were united in the museum - a healing of old wounds that Benedict Anderson rightly points out is essential in national history. Anderson calls this uniting of the victors and the defeated, or the victims and the assassins, a 'family history' created through strategic forgetting and remembering. The bloody war is forgotten as 'civil' and instead it is remembered as a family squabble which time has smoothed over. (Anderson: 1991) Nonetheless, the standards themselves represented dead battalions, for those battalions that had remained loyal to the president were disbanded after the civil war. They, too, had been conquered, like the Spanish and the Araucanians. Other trophies of war included canons and ammunition belts. Canons that 'perteneció al Museo de esa ciudad [Lima]' had been taken from Peru during the War of the Pacific. (Catálogo del Museo Military de Chile 1909: 37) The looting of Lima (of the 50,000 volumes in the National Library the Chileans left only 1,000) was a source of rancor between the countries for generations. But the contemporary Chileans had no shame about their looted goods. In one case, the museum displayed a standard from the Peruvian war for Independence that was 'found' in Callao during the Chilean occupation in 1881. (Catálogo del Museo Militar de Chile 1909: 9) Considering the symbolic importance of these scraps of fabric, the thefts were not of flags but of national history.
The military museum's collection was subsumed into a history museum (founded by presidential decree 2 May 1911) which survives to this day. The catalogue of the colonial exhibition, which Vicuña had hoped would become a historical document in its own right, served as the basis for re-gathering the collection of colonial and independence era relics for the new museum. The Museo Histórico Nacional united two historiographic sensibilities: a broader conception of history with that of a mentality of war and conquest. Moreover, the founding of the museum was prompted by the 1910 centennial celebrations. As Benjamín Vicuña Mackenna had hoped, an exhibition changed historical perceptions. The history museum was first given rooms in the recently-opened Museo de Bellas Artes, a neo-classical building situated in the French-designed Parque Forestal on the banks of the river. A painting from 1915 depicts display cases, a safe, furniture and Chilean flags and standards.
Afterwards, the museum was moved into a section of the Biblioteca Nacional, with its own entrance via Miraflores, now housing the National Archive. In 1982, the Museo Histórico Nacional moved to its current home in the Palacio de la Real Audiencia, in the restored Plaza de Armas where it currently engages historic inquiry through relics of the past. This examination of the various history museums and historic exhibitions in late nineteenth-century Chile has indicated two important trends. First of all, history museums were not given the priority we might have anticipated considering the importance of individual historians and scholarly history. Thus each museum and exhibit struggled to exist and, without the strong backing of Vicuña Mackenna, the only museum dedicated exclusively to history disappeared. Its collection, so carefully brought to Santiago from all over the country, was again dispersed. When a history exhibition managed to survive, or the government sought to found a historical exhibit, it was focused on the military. Vicuña Mackenna's vision of what belonged in a history museum was far broader than that of the governments, which concentrated on arms, captured flags and relics from the war dead. Only in 1911 were these two visions brought together in the current history museum.
BibliographyPrimary Sources (published and archival): Published Secondary Sources: |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
