“Combining skillful close readings, textual philology, and book history with theoretical approaches to colonial history and politics, race and slavery, this book is a groundbreaking contribution both to the elite cultural and literary history of colonial Iberoamerica and to the field of Virgilian reception studies more widely. It deserves a wide readership.”

Philip Hardie, Trinity College, University of Cambridge

“Lucid and illuminating, informed by meticulous research and skilled readings of the four known extant Latin epics produced by writers in the Spanish and Portuguese Americas, Empire’s Companion opens new pathways into both colonial studies and classical reception studies. Both for the quality of the scholarship and for the eloquence of Valdivieso’s prose, this book deserves to become a mainstay in colonial and postcolonial scholarship.”

Leah Middlebrook, University of Oregon

“Empire’s Companion introduces American epics emulating Virgil’s Aeneid. Valdivieso guides readers through commentaries of ancient grammarians, Renaissance humanists, and Jesuit missionaries, offering context via maps, pictographic writing, decorative shields, sculpture, and manuscripts. A boon for scholars and students of epic poetry, Empire’s Companion is a gift to any reader seeking to understand early modern empire building and its enduring cultural consequences.”

Elizabeth R. Wright, University of Georgia