Alvaro SILVA Moreana Vol.

53, 205-206 115-127

Utopia’s Best Reader

Alvaro Silva

Alvaro Silva is the Spanish editor and translator of several

works by Thomas More, author of Tomás Moro: un hombre para
todas las horas (Madrid, 2007), Thomas More (London, 2003),
and editor of The Last Letters of Thomas More (Grand Rapids,
Michigan, 2000). His first novel, Camina la noche, was
published in 2015 in Barcelona. He has completed a book on
poverty as social disaster and personal liberty in Thomas More

* * *

Among the many great readers of Thomas More’s Utopia, Vasco de Quiroga
(c. 1488-1565) appears to be most striking, even if we don’t know when or
where he read the book. The Spaniard arrived in Mexico in 1530, a few years
after Hernán Cortés, sent by Emperor Charles V with full judicial powers in a
land devastated by the chaos, brutality, and greed of the conquest, the native
people mercilessly abused and enslaved. Almost right away, Quiroga started
to give his time, talent, and treasure to create what he called a new “policy”
(policía) to protect the ‘indians” from the cruelty of the conquerors. He built
refuges (pueblos hospitales), islands of hospitality which he also designed for
all the lands and peoples in the New World, as the best way to secure peace,
protect and evangelize the populations. He would describe the “pueblos” with
words and ideas from his own reading of Utopia, and More was to him a
brilliant Englishman inspired by the Holy Spirit both to learn from the native
people and to build a new and better Christian civilization in the new land.
When Quiroga became bishop of Michoacán in 1536, he must have felt the
first real bishop of More’s Utopia. This paper intends to show that this
qualifies him as the Utopia’s best reader.
Keywords: Utopia, Vasco de Quiroga, pueblos hospitales, Mexico,
Michoacán
116 Moreana Vol. 53, 205-206 Alvaro SILVA

Parmi les nombreux lecteurs de L’Utopie de Thomas More, Vasco de Quiroga

(c. 148-1565) paraît le plus remarquable, même si nous ne savons ni quand ni où
il a lu le livre. L’Espagnol est arrivé du Mexique en 1530, quelques années après
Hernán Cortés, envoyé par l’Empereur Charles Quint, muni des droits juridiques
nécessaires dans une terre dévastée par le chaos, la brutalité et l’avidité de la
conquête, une terre où les indigènes étaient maltraités sans merci et réduits à
l’esclavage. Presque immédiatement, Quiroga se mit à donner tout son temps,
son talent et sa fortune pour créer ce qu’il appela une nouvelle « police »
(policía) afin de protéger les « indiens » de la cruauté des conquérants. Il
construisit des refuges (pueblos hospitales), havres d'hospitalité conçus
également pour l'ensemble des terres et des peuples du Nouveau Monde, comme
le meilleur moyen d'assurer la paix, de protéger et d'évangéliser les populations.
Il décrivait les “pueblos” en se servant des termes et des idées qu'il avait lus dans
L'Utopie, et More était pour lui un Anglais brillant inspiré par l'Esprit Saint, qui
indiquait à la fois comment apprendre des indigènes et comment établir une
meilleure civilisation chrétienne dans ces terres nouvelles. Lorsque Quiroga
devint évêque de Michoacán en 1536, il se sentit forcément le premier véritable
évêque de l’Utopie de More. Cet article souhaite démontrer que cela le qualifie de
meilleur lecteur de L’Utopie.
Mots clés : Utopie, Vasco de Quiroga, pueblos hospitales, Mexique,
Michoacán

Entre los muchos lectores de la Utopía de Tomás Moro, el nombre de Vasco

de Quiroga (c. 1488-1565) parece tan notable como extraño aun si no sabemos
con certeza cuándo ni dónde leyó el libro. El español llegó a México en 1530,
unos años después de Hernán Cortés, enviado por el emperador Carlos V con
plenos poderes judiciales, una tierra devastada por el caos, la brutalidad, y la
avaricia de la conquista, los pueblos nativos abusados y esclavizados sin
misericordia. Casi de inmediato, Quiroga empezó a dar su tiempo, talento y
dinero para crear un nuevo orden que respetara a los “indios” de la crueldad
de los conquistadores y protegiera sus derechos. De ahí la construcción de
“pueblos-hospitales”, islas de refugio que Quiroga soñaba para todas las tierras
y pueblos del Nuevo Mundo como la mejor manera de asegurar la paz,
proteger y evangelizar la población nativa. Describe estos “pueblos” con
palabras e ideas tomadas de su lectura de la Utopía. Para el juez español, Moro
es un autor inglés de brillante talento e inspirado por el Espíritu Santo tanto
para aprender de los pueblos originales como para levantar en las nuevas
tierras americanas una civilización cristiana nueva y mejor que la europea.
Cuando Quiroga fue nombrado obispo de Michoacán en 1536 tuvo que
sentirse como el primer obispo de la Utopía de Moro. Esta ponencia desea
Alvaro SILVA Moreana Vol. 53, 205-206 117

mostrar que todo esto podría ganar para Quiroga el título de “el mejor lector
de la Utopía”.
Palabras clave : Utopía, Vasco de Quiroga, pueblos hospitales, México,
Michoacán

* * *

1
Thomas More’s Utopia has been called an “advanced book” for
its age but it is also unthinkable without the intense longing for
reform in the medieval church, the flourishing of the liberal arts and
the recent discovery of the New World, that is, the European
encounter with the “other” in faraway lands. Erasmus thought that, in
writing the book, More had intended to show the causes of
2
deficiencies in society, and thus not a literary entertainment but an
urgent challenge to European Christendom, the first formal attempt at
social analysis since the ancient theoretical discussion on the “best
3
regime” of society.
What kind of readers did More desire? In a letter of September
1516 he told Erasmus that he wanted readers who were working in
4
public administration. A few weeks later, in a letter of October 31,
More mentioned Giles, Tunstal, Busleyden, and John le Sauvage, all
5
men who could in fact do something for the improvement of society.

1
George M. Logan, The Meaning of More’s Utopia (Princeton UP, 1983), 260, 268.
2
Letter to Ulrich von Hütten, 23 July 1519.
3
Neil Wood, Foundations of Political Economy: Some Early Tudor Views on State
and Society (U of California P, 1994), 40. Wood sees More as defending an
“enlightened conservatism” (93).
4
P. S. Allen II, 467. Rogers, Selected Letters, 7.
5
P. S. Allen II, 481. “I am anxious,” writes More (Selected Letters, 9). In
November 1516, More tells Tunstal that he is grateful “for having so carefully
read through the Utopia” (Selected Letters, 10). And also the letter of Busleyden
to More after reading the book (dated in Mechelen, 1516).
118 Moreana Vol. 53, 205-206 Alvaro SILVA

In the spring of the following year, when Erasmus wrote to More

asking for a copy of Utopia, he mentioned that a city official in
Antwerp had so much enjoyed the book that he had learned it by
6
heart. More would have been happier had he been told that this
gentleman was already considering and debating with his colleagues
even one small change in local government that would forward the
cause of reason and justice. Like many Renaissance authors, he wrote
with a pedagogical aim in mind and his book stands for a strong desire
to reform society. Indeed, it is an open or never ending book since it
says goodbye to the reader with the wish to meet again and continue
the discussion, quod utinam aliquando contingeret.
Since 1516 Utopia has had many good readers and the amount of
scholarly work is staggering, so much so that for me to name just one
of them as “the best reader of all” seems frivolous at the very least.
And yet, knowing More’s combination of humor, irony, and
seriousness, he might have been both surprised and delighted with my
proposal.

1. Utopia in the New World

In his prefatory letter, More laments that Raphael never told
them where exactly to find the mysterious island, a pity because, he
explains, “several among us” would like to go there, “and one in
particular, a devout man and a theologian by profession, burning with
extraordinary desire to visit Utopia. He does so not from an idle and
curious lust for sightseeing in new places but for the purpose of
7
fostering and promoting our religion, begun there so felicitously.”
In the real new world across the Atlantic, thousands of Spanish
soldiers or conquistadores were “burning with extraordinary desire”
for riches, power, and fame, indeed devastating the land and its

6
Letter, 8 March 1517 (P. S. Allen, Opus epist. II, 545).
7
Elizabeth Rogers, The Correspondence of Sir Thomas More (Princeton, 1947),
n. 25/53-75.
Alvaro SILVA Moreana Vol. 53, 205-206 119

people; but a few others had sailed the ocean with a different goal.
One of these was Juan de Zumárraga, a Franciscan priest from the
Basque country, who arrived in Mexico in 1528 to become its first
bishop. He may have brought with him a copy of Utopia, likely the
8
very first one in the Americas. Another Spaniard, Vasco de Quiroga,
a layman and a judge, would arrive in Mexico a couple of years later,
9
and it is this gentleman whom I propose as the best reader of Utopia.
10
Born around 1488 in Madrigal de las Altas Torres, near Avila in
the region of Castile, Quiroga studied law at the University of
Salamanca where he also read philosophy and theology, becoming
acquainted with the new studies in the humanities. Then he went to
work as a legal expert for the Spanish government. In 1523 he was
appointed judge in Oran, a city in North Africa conquered by the
Spaniards in 1509. Three years later, he was back in the Iberian
peninsula with the royal court. Pleased with his work, the emperor
Charles V asked him what new job he would prefer: a governorship in
Spain, a top assignment with the Holy Inquisition, or a magistrature in
New Spain. Undecided, the story goes that one day Quiroga stepped
into a church while the friars were singing psalms. The words “Who
will show us any good?” from Psalm 4:6, so caught his attention that
11
he felt God was calling him to serve the native people in New Spain.

8
De optimo reip. statv. deqve noua insula Vtopia, apud inclytam Basileam (1518),
now at the Benson Collection, University of Texas at Austin; this copy was
apparently found in the bishop’s library in Mexico City.
9
Cf. Silvio Zavala, La Utopía de Tomás Moro en la Nueva España y otros estudios
(Mexico, 1937), Fintan B. Warren, Vasco de Quiroga and His Pueblo-Hospitals
of Santa Fe (Washington D.C., 1963); and more recently, Paz Serrano Gassent,
Vasco de Quiroga. Utopía y derecho en la conquista de América (Madrid:
Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, México: FCE, 2001). Paz
Serrano Gassent (ed.), La utopía en América (Madrid: Dastin, 2002).
10
The exact date is unknown. Earlier accounts would put it somewhere in between
1470 and 1478. He died in Michoacán (Mexico) in March 14, 1565.
11
“O that we might see some good!” (RVS). The anecdote was told by Cristóbal
Cabrera who knew Quiroga as bishop of Michoacán and wrote his reminiscences
in Rome in 1582; he might have heard the story from the bishop’s mouth. In his
account the words are, “¿Quién nos mostrará las cosas buenas?” Cf. Fintan B.
Warren, Vasco de Quiroga and his Pueblo-Hospitals of Santa Fe (Washington,
120 Moreana Vol. 53, 205-206 Alvaro SILVA

He had become a knight of the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem,

known for its strong commitment to the poor and the sick, to orphans
and widows, and his choice defines Quiroga’s personality and goals in
life. The long expected reform of the Church was not only not
happening; the Church itself was in turmoil, believers divided against
each other, Lutherans and Catholics. This, along with other factors,
facilitated an age of apocalyptic expectation in Europe and, for some,
the dream of a new beginning of Christianity in the new lands across
the Atlantic. It was this dream of a new society, one closer to the
apostles of Jesus and truer to the spirit of the Gospel that compelled
Quiroga to choose the job in New Spain.
Appointed judge of the Segunda Audiencia, one of the highest
positions in the Spanish government, Quiroga sailed from Seville with
three other judges in August 1530 and, after two months in Santo
12
Domingo, arrived in Veracruz on December 23, 1530.

2. The Making of a Christian Utopia

The four judges reached the great city of Tenochtitlan, the
capital of New Spain, on January 9, 1531, that is, only about ten years
after the swift conquest of Mexico by Hernán Cortés. We can scarcely
imagine the horror and devastation that they could see by themselves
everywhere. A military conquest is always a brutal affair but what
deeply disturbed Quiroga was the cruel and criminal abuse of the
vanquished native population. His descriptions are astonishing and
his disgust is even more poignant because he sees in the victims not
only innocent men, women and children, but people who remind him
of the very apostles of Jesus of Nazareth. In the indigenous peoples he

D.C., 1963), and Ernest J. Burrus, “Cristóbal Cabrera on the Missionary Methods
of Vasco de Quiroga,” Manuscripts V (1961), 12-27.
12
In Santo Domingo the four Spanish judges must have become familiar with the
ideas of Bartolomé de las Casas, Antón de Montesinos, and the Dominican
priests, and more specifically discussed the Memorial de remedios (1516) with its
clear guidelines to avoid the destruction of the new land and its native people.
Alvaro SILVA Moreana Vol. 53, 205-206 121

saw the true disciples of Christ, even if they had never heard of his
name, the Gospel or the Church. More than building Utopia, the
perfect state of society, Quiroga amazingly believes that he has found
it already here, in the new world and so far away from European
Christendom. All he needs to do is to protect these so-called Indians
from the pride and greed, the violence and abuse of the Spanish
conquerors; the preaching of Christian doctrine will come later, as a
final touch so to speak. For this tender and austere man from Castile,
the spirit of the Gospel is already in the hearts and manner of living of
the natives. For him, the “best regime” of society is not anymore an
intellectual interest or a theoretical discussion among scholars or
philosophers or theologians but a given reality. Utopia is here, right
in front of him if he can only protect it from the conquerors’s greed
13
and pride and let it grow with the salt and light of the Gospel.
Only a few months later, in a letter to the Consejo de Indias
dated August 14, 1531, Quiroga described some of the horrors he had
witnessed. After the conquest by Hernán Cortés, he wrote, here all is
“chaos and confusion.” The hunger and despair of orphans and poor
people is such, he continues, that “it would not be possible to believe
unless one sees them.” He has seen people seeking to eat what is left
by pigs and dogs, “a thing of great pity,” the judge adds. So desperate
is the situation that it seems impossible to put things back in “good
order”: “ni pueden ser puestos en orden ni policía de buenos
14
cristianos.” Not only with respect but with genuine admiration he

13
The same could be said of Bartolomé de las Casas or the Jesuit “reductions” in
Paraguay. In these efforts “utopia” leaves behind the ancient tradition and
becomes a hands-on project. “The theoretical foundations of this new
experimental utopia constitute an anti-Machiavellian interpretation of good
government, a political ideal which derives from a long tradition of Christian
thought aspiring to a ‘renovatio,’ which was being carried on either according to a
medieval ideal of a universal Christian empire or according to Erasmian ideals”
(Stelio Cro, The Noble Savage: Allegory of Freedom, Waterloo, Ontario, 1990, 4).
14
“Andan por los tianguez e calles a buscar de comer lo que dexan los puercos y los
perros, cosa de gran piedad de ver y estos huérfanos y pobres son tantos, que no es
cosa de se poder creer si no se ve”, in Epistolario y Documentos diversos de Don
122 Moreana Vol. 53, 205-206 Alvaro SILVA

notices their natural virtues. He delights in their simple humanity,

the same men and women who for many of the conquerors were
nothing but animals to be used and abused as slaves until physical
exhaustion and death destroyed them in the mines and elsewhere.
Quiroga describes the native people with traits that shine in the
island of Utopia. Greed is unknown among them. They care not for
superfluous things but live content with what they have “en muy
grande y libre libertad,” as he will write in his Información en
15
derecho. They are “at peace, as if free from the whims of Fortune;
they are pure, prudent, and most simple; they look at us in
16
amazement when they see our restlessness and anxiety” (ID 189).
Without concern for the morrow, they seem not to care for the things
that drive the Spaniards mad with obsessive greed of gold and riches,
power and fame. They seem to live, in Quiroga’s eyes, in a Golden
Age, the very opposite of the age of iron and steel the Spaniards madly
17
crave and want to impose everywhere (ID 190). Again and again, he
is ashamed at his compatriots’ behavior, brutal, rapacious, and
criminally horrific. Because of the bad example of such Christian
men, the indigenous people will never know and praise the true God,
laments the judge (ID 170). For the Spanish adventurers, he writes, “a
dog is worth more than a man” and so untold numbers of natives end
up slaves in the mines, “a thing of much inhumanity and pity” (ID 187,

Vasco de Quiroga, ed. Escobar Olmedo, Armando (Morelia, México: Editorial

Gospa, 2013), 85-91.
15
ID 189. The Spanish title means “objective, honest, and straightforward
information.”
16
“[A]hora en este Nuevo Mundo parece que hay y se ve en aquestos naturales, con
un descuido y menosprecio de todo lo superfluo, con aquel mismo contentamiento
y muy grande y libre libertad de las vidas y de los ánimos que gozan aquestos
naturales, y con muy grand sosiego dellos, que parece como que no estén
obligados ni subjetos a los casos de fortuna, de puros, prudentes y simplecísimos,
y se maravillan de nosotros, y de nuestras cosas e inquietud y desasosiego que
traemos, como algunos algunas veces ya lo han dicho a alguno de nosotros,
maravillándose mucho de ello” (ID 189).
17
”edad dorada entre ellos, que es vuelta entre nosotros de hierro y acero y peor”
(ID 190)
Alvaro SILVA Moreana Vol. 53, 205-206 123

“cosa de mucha inhumanidad y lástima”). Quiroga writes of millions

such people.
He knew well the Laws of Burgos from 1512 about the treatment
of native people and must have discussed the document at length with
Bartolomé de las Casas, among others, in Santo Domingo, not
forgetting his own experience in North Africa. In 1532, and with his
own money, Quiroga bought land a few miles to the west of the city
(now Santa Fe, within Mexico City, the very name Quiroga gave his
project of a city for his well ordered city). It would be the first pueblo-
hospital, that is a “hospitality town,” a safe and humane place to live,
and for as many as 30,000 people. Another would follow a year later.
These pueblos had their own administration both civil and ecclesiastic,
and a mixed government of Spaniards and natives. Quiroga
contemplated a network of such towns up and down the American
continent, for him the very future of the New World and a New
Christianity. Years later he would write to the people in such pueblos:
“I would like you to live without needs and without idleness, in good
order and according to Christian doctrine, without impairment of
your obedience, simplicity and humility” and always protected from
“the three beasts that destroy and corrupt everything in this world,
18
pride, greed and ambition.”

3. The Vision of “Tomás Morus”

In Información en derecho, written in early summer 1535, about
four and a half years after his arrival in Mexico, Quiroga introduces
Thomas More as a “great Greek,” an expert author who had translated

18
“Quiero que viváis sin necesidad y sin ociosidad, en buena policía y doctrina
cristiana, sin menoscabo de vuestra obediencia, simplicidad, humildad (…) y sin
el peligro de las tres bestias que todo en este mundo destruyen y corrompen, que
son la soberbia, codicia y ambición” (Reglas y Ordenanzas para el gobierno de
los hospitales de Santa Fe en México y Michoacán. Dispuestas por su fundador el
Rmo. y Venerable señor Don Vasco de Quiroga, primer obispo de Michoacán
(México: Talleres de la Nación, 1940), xviii, n. 3).
124 Moreana Vol. 53, 205-206 Alvaro SILVA

some works of Lucian into Latin, and one well versed in the
19
humanities. In the mind of the Spaniard, this illustrious and genial
man, of surpassing intelligence, without having ever visited the New
World, had been able to describe the Golden Age and its people “as if
inspired by the Holy Spirit” writing down “the ordinances and optimal
20
state of the commonwealth.” It’s easy to understand Quiroga’s
astonishment. The book by Tomás Morus, as he calls him, seems to
him a miracle or, even better, a very opportune and much needed
divine revelation. The Englishman “put it there [in Utopia] … without
having seen it [he] puts it, paints it and describes it in such manner
that makes me admire it many times because it seems to me it was as
if through revelation of the Holy Spirit for the order which would be
convenient and necessary for this New Spain and New World.” In the
writing of Utopia it was revealed to More “the entire disposition,
place, as well as manner and condition and secret of this land and its
21
people.” Whether or not he had read the book before crossing the
Atlantic, Quiroga understood Utopia as if the Englishman had seen
with his own eyes the native peoples, and therefore was able to
describe the situation and affirm it as absolutely real. Utopia was not
just a dream or an impossible social ideal but a reality right in front of
his eyes. If you didn't see it, he wrote, you would not believe it
possible at all, “but he who has experienced it, has not doubt about it”
22
(ID 180).

19
“este auctor Tomás Moro fué grand griego y grand experto y de mucha autoridad,
y traduxo algunas cosas de Luciano de griego en latín” (ID 197).
20
“…como inspirado del Espíritu Santo de las costumbres de aquellas, las
ordenanzas y muy buen estado de la república” (ID 196).
21
“…como él allí sin haberlo visto lo pone, pinta y describe, en tanta manera, que
me hace muchas veces admirar, porque me parece que fue como por revelación de
Espíritu Santo para la orden que convendría y sería nescesario que se diese en esta
Nueva España y Nuevo Mundo, segúnd parece como que se le revelaron toda la
disposición, sitio, y manera y condición y secretos esta tierra y naturales della”
(ID 208).
22
« Y ésta pienso haber sido la causa e intención del autor, no de menospreciar, que
ordenó y compuso el muy buen estado y manera de república de que se sacó la de
mi parescer, en ponerla, contarla y afirmarlas por cosa vista y hecha y
Alvaro SILVA Moreana Vol. 53, 205-206 125

4. The Reader’s Responsibility

This quality, nothing less than “divine revelation,” marks More’s
influence on the Spanish judge who sees in the book both inspiration
and confirmation of what he has been trying to do in the New World
and will continue later for many years as the first bishop of
Michoacán. The learned English author had been able to describe the
goodness and simple humanity of these people as if with the help of
the Holy Spirit.
Only fifteen years after Utopia’s publication, Quiroga confirms
the book’s deep truth and sets to build a Christian Utopia in Mexico
with his own money. No more words are needed. It’s the hour of
building or rebuilding the good order of a true and renewed
Christendom in the newly discovered lands. The best state of the
commonwealth is for all Christian eyes to see, right here, all around
him, in the life style and customs of the natives in New Spain. The
“other” has become the perfect example of basic Gospel virtues. He
reads Utopia as a prophetic text. It happened just as the Englishman
had announced. All the new world needs is the formal instruction in
the Church of the Apostles and it will become the perfect society, a
new Christendom just as old European Christendom breaks apart and
dies. (Baptism was not imposed in the pueblo-hospitales). Quiroga’s
own decision to sail to New Spain seems preordained and
providential. The anecdote of the friars singing the psalm “Who will
show us the good things?,” which may have inspired Quiroga to
choose the job as a government official in Mexico, can now be read
both ways, even as a terrific paradox: the European missionaries will
bring the Christian faith to people who already live it without having
ever set eyes on the Bible. This land, he writes, “with great cause and
reason, and as if for divine inspiration” is known as the New World

experimentada, y porque si esto una vez no se experimentase, paresce que no se

podría creer; pero quien lo tiene experimentado, ninguna dubda pone en ello” (ID
180).
126 Moreana Vol. 53, 205-206 Alvaro SILVA

and thus it has to be taken “in order to be well understood, governed,

23
and ordered, not at all in the manner and shape of our own.”
Should the modern reader not be moved at this astonishing
reading of the “other” and “the stranger” five centuries ago? Quiroga’s
amazement has to do first of all with Thomas More himself, a devoted
Christian in London who could already imagine a society perfectly
ignorant of Christianity and yet much closer in mind and heart and
practice to the essence of the Christian faith, even to the remarkable
idea of some basic religious tolerance. But then also, astonishment at
this judge from Castile who reads the Englishman's book as if it had
been inspired by the Holy Spirit for this particular moment and place
in history. Quiroga sees himself as the lucky reader in the right place
and time. He will not read Utopia and just talk or write about it, or let
it be. He will build it with his own sweat and money. He responds to
the book’s truth as he sees it.
One of his biographers gave Quiroga the title of “bishop of
24
Utopia.” And he would also be given citizenship in More’s island by
Marcel Bataillon: “Don Vasco de Quiroga Utopien” was the title of a
25
1967 article. More recently, the late Mexican writer and novelist,
Carlos Fuentes, called him “More’s most fervent reader” and saw him
as arriving in Mexico “with Thomas More’s book under his arm,”
perfectly identified with the Utopian program. “Utopia,” Fuentes
wrote, “should be the Carta Magna, the constitution of pacific
coexistence between the devastated world of the Indians and the
26
triumphalist world of the white man in the New World.”

23
“y ser éste como es en la verdad con grand causa y razón y como por divina
inspiración llamado Nuevo Mundo, como en la verdad en todo y por todo lo es, y
por tal debe ser tenido para ser bien entendido, gobernado y ordenado, no a la
manera y forma del nuestro” (ID 180).
24
Benjamín Jarnés, Vasco de Quiroga, obispo de Utopía (México, 1942).
25
Marcel Bataillon, “Don Vasco de Quiroga Utopien,” Moreana 15 (1967), 385-
394.
26
Tiempos y espacios (México, 1997). Fuentes writes of Quiroga as “el más
fervoroso lector” de Moro (53). “Llega con el libro de Tomás Moro bajo el brazo.
La lectura de Moro simplemente identifica la convicción del obispo dominico.
Utopía debería ser la Carta Magna, la constitución de la coexistencia pacífica
Alvaro SILVA Moreana Vol. 53, 205-206 127

As I admitted at the start, my claim that Vasco de Quiroga is

the best reader of More’s Utopia is indeed farfetched, frivolous and
impossible to verify. Obviously, I’m not saying that his reading was
the most scholarly or that he could have produced the best
commentary or a critical edition of the book. Great scholarship
indeed has much to do with the correct reading of a book (or any
other work in the arts and humanities), illuminating it in so many
unexpected ways. I wish I had been able to prove exactly when and
27
where Quiroga had first noticed or read the book. However, I have
always been much interested in reader-response criticism, reception
studies or reception history, that is, the reader’s responsibility. Once a
book is finished in its author's eyes, life begins for it, or rather many
lives even beyond the author’s expectations. I think More would have
been delighted had he known what a Spanish judge was doing with his
book so far away in the new lands on the other side of the world, even
as he was ending his days in the Tower of London, deprived of liberty,
of his books, and at last, of his very life.

Alvaro Silva
alvarodesilva@yahoo.com

entre el mundo devastado de los indios y el mundo triunfalista del hombre blanco
en el Nuevo Mundo” (54).
27
Did he use the copy of Utopia at Bishop Zumárraga’s library in Mexico? He
might have read it in Spain, or at least heard of the book. Erasmus’s influence on
Quiroga is also evident and yet we don't know anything more precise about when
and where he read him. According to Pablo Arce Gargollo, Quiroga only read the
book years after the pueblo-hospitales were operating and used it as a sort of
theoretical foundation. Cf. Biografía y Guía Bibliográfica, Vasco de Quiroga,
Jurista con mentalidad secular (Mexico: Porrúa-Universidad Panamericana,
2007).