The City of the Kings

The name given by Francisco Pizarro to the city now called Lima, in Peru, was "Ciudad de los Reyes," or The City of the Kings. This was in honor of the "Three Kings" who came from the East to visit the infant Jesus--the site for the city having been selected, or rather decided upon, on the sixth of January, 1535, the feast of the Epiphany. But the Castilian name ceased to be used within the first generation, and was supplanted by that of Lima, a corruption of the Indian Rimac, being the name of the valley and river where Lima is situated. Pizarro was assassinated there on the 26th of June, 1541, and his body was buried in the Cathedral. The city of Lima was elevated to a bishopric during the same century, and five provincial councils were held there, the first being in 1583. Many other cities claiming that the "wise men" who came from the East were the kings Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar, have delighted to honor them. Cologne is styled by way of eminence the "City of the Three Kings," because it claims to possess their skulls enshrined in its sublime cathedral.