SATIRICÓN MORALIZADO: PETRONIO EN LA OBRA DE ESPINOSA MEDRANO

In the salutations of two sermons preached in Cuzco in 1662 and 1679, Juan de Espinosa Medrano (c. 1629-1688) evoked Trimalchio’s banquet in Petronius’ Satyricon. Previously, he had used another passage from the same work (frequently quoted in the polemic around Gongorism) in his Apologético en favor de Góngora. However, in the sermons he adopts a more daring approach to Petronius’ text by developing a novel Christian allegorization of Trimalchio’s banquet as a prefiguration of the Eucharist (Oración panegírica de la renovación del santísimo sacramento) or amending its original profane nature (Sermón del Miércoles de Ceniza). The history of the dissemination of the Satyricon text; the distinctive features of the edition used by Espinosa, which had been prepared by the Protestant humanist Joseph Scaliger; and the latter’s placing in the Index of forbidden books are instrumental in grasping the implications of citing Petronius in the context of colonial culture.