[St. John of God Hospitals]:

$2,000 · Offered by William Reese Company

EL REY. POR QUANTO HAVIENDO FRAY RAPHEAÈL ZAPATERO, DISINIDOR, Y PROCURADOR GENERAL DE SU RELIGION DE SAN JUAN DE DIOS, PRESENTADO EN MI CONSEJO DE LAS INDIAS UNA BULA...AUNQUE EN SU INTELIGENCIA, Y ... A rare broadsheet proclamation by Ferdinand VI, King of Spain, confirming that the law is to be observed in a precise and punctual manner. The pertinent law, recorded earlier in the Recopilacion de las Indias, outlines the method of reviewing the administration and recording the accounts of the hospitals in the New World maintained by the religious order of St. John of God. The Hospital Brothers of St. John of God were present in America, most notably New Spain and Peru, beginning in the early 17th century. Following the initial 16th-century wave of evangelization represented by the Franciscans, Dominicans, Augustinians, Mercedarians, and Jesuits, the Hospital Brothers was one of "another group of orders, of varying characteristics but largely devoted to caring for the sick and the destitute in the cities. Their very existence attested the new needs of an increasingly complex colonial society" (Bethell). This copy, accomplished in manuscript in Buen Retiro on February 13, 1756, is signed by Joachim Joseph Vazquez y Morales as representative of the King of Spain with the inscription "Yo El Rey" and the annotation "Por mand[a]do del Rey." Manuscript inscriptions on the recto and verso of the integral blank leaf attest to the document being reviewed by the Spanish colonial govern

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