In Aguafuertes, Jesús del Campo paints a colorful picture of the Baroque, a time when the air smelled of gunpowder and the seas of spices. Each of these extraordinary vignettes—folk-costumbrist in tone but drawn with the finesse of a historian—transports us to an era whose labors and violence were no obstacle to eroticism and love, and whose battles and intrigues reveal the eternal "dance of mortals on the treacherous paths of life." Peasants, explorers, wandering musicians, soldiers, merchants, spies, and idle nobles offer in this kaleidoscopic tale a picture of humanity with all its chiaroscuro.