Anchieta’s shadow: material culture and historical memory in museums, cities and landscapes

ABSTRACT This article seeks to analyze some artifacts and sites that were valued and preserved once they were associated with the figure of Father José de Anchieta (1533-1597). It aims to relate such objects and sites with the construction of Anchieta historical imagery under two main aspects: the hagiographic and the heroic, understanding the latter as his transformation into a major protagonist of an epic and nationalistic interpretation of Brazilian colonial history through the 19th and 20th centuries. Rather than the production of monuments and public events in his honor, it aims to focus on the musealization, or in situ preservation, of artifacts and sites in the São Paulo state supposedly associated with him. Therefore, these objects and sites are comprehended as fixators of his heroicized image in the present.