Collection context
Summary
- Creators:
- Mission Santa Clara Mission Santa Clara
- Abstract:
- The Mission Santa Clara Book Collection is comprised of 148 titles of Mission-period books, dating from 1548-1835. The Collection was the library for Mission Santa Clara, founded in 1777 by the Franciscan Fathers. The volumes are primarily religious books including Bibles, breviaries, devotional works, theological publications, and compilations of sermons. Some volumes are reference volumes about agriculture.
- Language:
- and [code "Spanish" not found in ISO 639-2 list].
Background
- Scope and content:
-
The Mission Santa Clara Book Collection consists of 148 titles totaling 287 volumes. Many of the volumes were brought from the Colegio de San Fernando in Mexico City, the headquarters of the Franciscans in New Spain, to Mission Santa Clara when it was founded by the Franciscans in 1777. The titles are primarily religious works including Bibles, breviaries, devotional works, theological publications, and compilations of sermons, and are written in Spanish, Latin or French. Many titles are multiple-volume works. Volumes from the Colegio de San Fernando are labeled with the inscription from the College.
- Biographical / historical:
-
The Mission Santa Clara Book Collection was created by the Franciscan Fathers when they founded Mission Santa Clara in 1777. Many of the volumes were brought from the Colegio de San Fernando in Mexico City, the headquarters of the Franciscans in New Spain. When Mission Santa Clara was transferred from the Franciscans to the Jesuits to establish Santa Clara College in 1851, many of these volumes were transferred as well. Some volumes were in private ownership and have since been returned to the Mission Book Collection in the Archives (accession 992-026). Additional Mission-period books are located in the Special Collections of Orradre Library, and the de Saisset Museum.
- Arrangement:
-
The Mission Santa Clara Book Collection is arranged alphabetically by first letter of the author or title of the book, then numerically by the number of titles in the alpha series. All titles are Record Group 1B.
- Physical description:
- 287 bound volumes
- Note:
-
Additional guides or inventories have been prepared for many of the volumes in the Mission Santa Clara Book Collection. In 1851, Fr. Real , O.F.M., prepared an inventory of the books and artifacts turned over to Fr. John Nobili, S.J., when Mission Santa Clara property was transferred from the Franciscan missionaries to the Jesuit order for the establishment of Santa Clara College. Fr. Nobili was one of the founders of the College. The volumes that were listed on Fr. Real's inventory of 1851 are indicated in component level descriptions in this finding aid, referenced as Real numbers.
In 1961, an inventory of the Mission Santa Clara books was prepared as a Master's thesis by Santa Clara University librarian Beryl Hoskin, and published as "A History of the Santa Clara Mission Library," Oakland: Biobooks, 1961. The volumes described here that were listed in the Hoskin inventory are indicated in the item descriptions in this finding aid, referenced as Hoskin numbers.
Access and use
- Location of this collection:
-
Dept. of Archives & Special Collections, University Library,500 El Camino RealSanta Clara, CA 95053-0500, US
- Contact:
- (408) 554-5530