91Â鶹¹ú²ú¾«Æ·×ÔÅÄ

The Gazofilacio Real del Perú, written by Gaspar de Escalona y Agüero, is a financial, legal and judicial treatise that describes the administration of the province of Peru's Royal Patrimony, its account and circulation, and the rise and conservation of royal revenues and rights. Contained in two books, it describes the Royal Patrimony administration (between the Royal Councils of the Indies and the Treasury), royal officials' specialised work, the calculation and accounts of royal revenues, the one-fifths and one and a half of assayer (which includes a substantial compendium of the mining ordinances of Viceroy Don Francisco de Toledo), rates for azogueros (miners), rules for the accounts to be paid for the treasury of huacas (sacred sites), estanco de naipes (playing card production authorizations), almojarifazgos (import/export duties), alcabalas (sales taxes), trades, yanaconas (servants), rules for vacant lands and benefits for the heirs and widows of ministers.

It is the only treatise of its kind in the Spanish Kingdom and its overseas provinces. It provides an understanding of the economic history of the colonial period and analyses the obligations and rights of indigenous peoples over communal lands and their relationship to the colonial economic and financial regime. In the dedication to King Philip IV, Escalona y Agüero states that the Gazofilacio "corresponds to the Treasury, Chamber or archive where the wealth is not only kept and deposited but also the titles, deeds and Revenues with which the revenue is administered (...) and therefore so necessary and feared, that many who exposed their valiant chests to the points of enemy halberds have trembled faint-heartedly at the points of the pens of the accountants' offices."