Exemplary lives are a literary and historiographical genre that narrate the life trajectory of both religious and exceptional figures. Through disseminating these stories within the Christian tradition, ideal values, practices, and behaviors for leading a ‘good life’ were exemplified and magnified. In the colonial period, specifically in 18th-century Santafé de Bogotá, the lives of exemplary figures, popular saints, and non-canonized venerables were circulated as a way to appropriate institutional practices by representing localized devotion and religious ideals within the social body. This study focuses on the exemplary life of María Gertrudis Teresa de Santa Inés, a female figure beloved by the Santafé community and immortalized in an exemplary tale written by her confessor. This research analyzes the literary figure of Sor María and her characterization within the colonial context of the 18th-century.
