A Gift from the World’s Highest Capital to the Berlin Lowlands
The Ambassador of the Republic of Ecuador to Germany, Vicente Albornoz, and the Director of the Ibero-American Institute (IAI), Barbara Göbel, signed a donation agreement in late September 2026. Thousands of books, journals, original manuscripts, maps, photographs, and negatives are now being transferred to the IAI, part of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation.
Quito—located in the Andes at an elevation of just under 3,000 meters—is the highest capital city in the world. Ecuador has often been a center of attraction for German archaeologists and other scholars. This is reflected in the collections that are the subject of the donation agreement, including documents by the German geographer, geologist, and botanist Theodor Wolf, whose studies—conducted on official behalf of the Ecuadorian government—were incorporated into his most important work, “Geografía y Geología del Ecuador” (1892, Leipzig). Also worthy of note is the estate of the archaeologist and linguist Max Uhle (1856–1944). He is considered the founder of systematic archaeology in South America.
Ambassador Albornoz was accompanied at the signing of the donation agreement by his embassy’s chargé d’affaires, León Pablo Avilés, Consul Jorge Fabara, and Cultural Attaché Natasha Canelos.
Poetry by His Own Grandfather Discovered
However, the ambassador and the chargé d’affaires were already familiar with the IAI. Earlier this year, the then-new ambassador paid his inaugural visit to the institute and discussed cultural and scientific relations between Ecuador and Germany with the director. During this visit, he made a surprising discovery in the IAI library’s collection: In an 1896 issue of the journal “Revista de la Sociedad Figarovon,” there is “a poetic text” written by his grandfather. Miguel Angel Albornoz was an Ecuadorian politician, diplomat, journalist, and intellectual. He passed away in Quito in 1964 at the age of 91.
As early as 2024, the IAI had received a large amount of material from Ecuador. This followed the Frankfurt Book Fair, where the country’s Chamber of Booksellers had presented itself.
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