Skeletons and Great Balls of Fire: Funeral Culture in the Eighteenth-Century Spanish Empire

Text by JCB Research Associate Brittany Erwin

In the spring of 1768, a dark cloud enveloped the city of Lima. Government offices closed, and solemn church bells rang out as local citizens dressed in mourning clothes. Isabella Farnese, the Queen of Spain, had died.

The people of Lima flooded into the streets to watch a solemn funeral procession headed towards the cathedral. Church and state authorities had spent months preparing: writing sermons, coordinating gun salutes with local militiamen, mapping out the funeral procession route and sweeping the streets, preparing their finest clothing, and planning the intricate decorations. They had also spent thousands of pesos on candles, wood and building supplies, and expensive textiles to adorn the church. All this for a queen who had never once set foot in Peru.

A vast ocean separated the Americas from the royal court in Madrid, and most Spanish subjects never laid eyes on the royal family at all. However, a deep sense of both religious and political obligation motivated Spanish American vassals to commit their time and resources to these over-the-top displays of reverence. Elaborate ceremonies honoring the death of kings, queens, princes, and princesses therefore became fairly frequent events for Spanish American communities. At least 25 of these funeral events occurred during the eighteenth century alone.

The ceremonies tended to follow a similar format, which often included mass at the cathedral, processions through the streets, and sometimes a special banquet or musical performance. Joining in on these empire-wide funerary ceremonies helped communities feel connected to one another and to their king. Some stood on balconies watching the festivities. Wealthy residents rode the streets in their fine clothing and ornate horse-drawn carriages. Companies of Indigenous, Black, and mixed race militias each marched in their colorful uniforms. Their parades, sermons, and decorative imagery also helped cement a deeper connection between loyalty to the Crown and devotion to God.

Yet, every site added its own flavor to the festivities, incorporating different kinds of decorative elements, orchestral music, or poetry. The limeño artisans built a massive catafalque, or multi-story wooden monument, to honor the departed queen. At over 60 feet tall, it stood as tall as the cathedral.

The first level held a coffin adorned with the royal seal. It was draped in black velvet and guarded by eight statues, each representing the queen’s “virtues or natural gifts,” including fortitude, magnanimity, and piety. Personifications of Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas sat on the corners of the second level, a demonstration of the world-wide grief caused by the death of such a pious and generous queen. An imposing skeleton armed with a bow and arrow looked down on her tomb from the third level, a reminder of the inescapable force of death. Finally, at the top, a statue of a woman representing Lima appeared in a state of anguish. Rain clouds surrounded her as a metaphor for the city’s grief and turmoil from the queen’s death.

Gold and silver details on every level of this monument shimmered in the candlelight of the cathedral with over “one thousand four-wick funeral torches.” Flames danced up the sides of two pillars framing the catafalque and erupted into great “vessels of fire” at the top of each one. This towering structure became the final destination for the funeral procession, allowing limeños to process their grief by looking down at her tomb and up to the heavens.

The funeral festivities honoring Isabella Farnese in Lima became more than just a commemoration of her death. Through paintings, sculpture, poetry, and spectacular rituals, they communicated ideas about faith, justice, and the queen’s role in the empire to the limeño people. These events also gave local subjects from many backgrounds the opportunity to participate in a public, communal expression of loyalty to both God and the monarchy.

Funeral culture in the early modern Spanish world offers a window into the material and emotional nature of Spanish American subjects’ relationship with the monarchy. The months of effort and mountains of pesos that limeño residents had invested into this event suggests that they found deep meaning and value in contributing to a funeral for a queen they had never met. In the flickering candlelight of Lima’s cathedral, at the feet of a monument built in Lima with American materials, a distant king and queen could feel remarkably present.