RICKE, JODOCO

Franciscan missionary, builder and educator; b. of a noble family of Ghent, Belgium, 1495; d. Popayan, New Granada, 1575. According to Diego de Trujillo, he came to Peru from Nicaragua while Pizarro was still at Túmbez waiting to go to Cajamarca to meet the Inca. Ricke came to Quito with his fellow citizen Pedro Gosseal, in the retinue of Don Pedro de Alvarado. Although he is not included in the list of those who took up domicile in Quito, his name appears among those to whom ground-plots were distributed. About 30,000 square meters were assigned to the Franciscans for the church, monastery, and garden, on the site where the palace of the Inca had been located. Friar Jodoco drew up the plan of the church and the buildings and directed construction until most of the work was finished. He was the leader in the founding and operation of the Colegio de San Andrés, which trained the native peoples in all types of crafts and trades. In both educational and construction work, he had as collaborators his fellow countrymen Pedro Gosseal, Germán de Alemán, and Jácome Flamenco, and he was helped by educated natives headed by Jorge de la Cruz Mitima and his son Francisco Morocho. Civezza says that Friar Jodoco taught the natives to plow with oxen, to make yokes and carts, to do arithmetic, to read and write in Spanish, to play musical instruments, and to sing both with the pipe organ and unaccompanied.

Bibliography: j. m. vargas, Arte quiteño colonial (Quito 1944). j. g. navarro, Artes plásticas ecuatoréanas (Mexico City 1945).

[j. m. vargas]