Las tres destrucciones de la Villa Imperial de Potosí. Arzáns entre historia y literatura

. The present study examines the scene for the three destructions that Bartolomé Arzáns details in his Historia de la Villa Imperial de Potosí . They are presented as moments of crisis in the villa imperial of Potosí, responding to the meaning that has been given to the word ‘crisis’ over time. After a brief summary of the editorial history of the work and a reference to the significant place it occupies in Bolivian literature, each one being presented as the destruction of the imperial city is analysed in detail (the war of nations between the Vicuñas and the Vascongados, the flood of 1626 and the monetary fraud of 1650), the prodigies recounted by Arzáns are described and the interweaving of history and literature is emphasised, and an attempt is made to unravel certain elements which, although they belong to history, had been hitherto considered legendary.