THE SOLAR ECLIPSE OF 1867: SCIENCE, POLITICS AND RELIGION IN REPUBLICAN CHILE

This work analyzes the observation of the solar eclipse of August 29, 1867 in Curico, from a perspective that considers the scientific, political and religious context of Chile in the middle of the 19th century,that is, from a perspective that understands science as a process fully related to society (Shapin, Schaffer, Latour). This article studies the central aspects of this "process", focusing, on the one hand, on the scientific report of the jesuit and astronomer Enrique Cappelletti and, on the other, on the journalistic chronicle of Jose Victorino Lastarria, which is complemented by the review of daily press of the days immediately following the eclipse, to trace the ways in which the astronomical phenomenon was understood not only by experts in science, but also by the audiences of this.The central question of the work is to resolve to what extent the generation of astronomical knowledge is linked to situations that go beyond observation and experimentation itself, and in relation to this, how new extra-scientific meanings are attributed to the astronomical practices and knowledge in the context studied.