Adolph Sutro’s original vision of a public research library in the city of San Francisco can be seen on his bookplate, whose design he personally approved and is used to this day. One gets the feeling that his vision was ill-fated from the start. The first copies struck revealed the plate contained a typo—“vincit” (Latin…
The top and bottom edges of Sutro’s copy of Jose Sigüenza’s biography of Saint Jerome (La vida de S. Geronimo dotor de la santa iglesia. Madrid: Tomás Junta, 1595) carry a legible firebrand: “S.Jacto.O.P.” The Catalogo Colectivo de Marcas de Fuego identifies it with the Dominican convent of San Jacinto in Mexico City.[1] Founded in…
Among Sutro Library’s collections of books from colonial Mexican libraries are several that were kept and used by women’s convents. Though women were largely excluded from intellectual pursuits, these books account for some of the activities of "mujeres letradas" (lettered women), who were writers, printers, and readers. As Nuria Salazar Simarro writes in her article…
[The following entry is from guest blogger and SF State University undergraduate, Giselle H., who worked on a small research project at the Sutro Library last semester. She supplied all the text and images that follow.] This semester I had the opportunity to research at Sutro Library, which provided me with experience in handling and…
Jose Manuel Sartorio was a priest in late colonial Mexico.[1] Of humble origins, Sartorio excelled in his studies and was several years in residence at the Colegio de San Ildefonso, a prestigious Jesuit college. His 4,000-volume personal library would have made for a formidable display of his penchant for letters. Some of these are now…
I love the smell of a new book, the slight creak of the binding as it’s opened for the first time, the smooth, unmarked pages. But I also love the smell of old books, the soft, forgiving bindings that have been opened time and time again, the pages that bear the marks of previous owners. …
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