When he was asked to explain why he had chosen to include what he did, his answer was simple: “For reasons of history.” Aponte was executed after his trial, and his book disappeared. All that is left are Aponte’s descriptions of the work, page by page, at his trial. But that testimony has allowed contemporary historians and artists to reconstruct his visionary awareness that, in seeking to change his world, he first had to compile his own history of what had come before.