Category: Fine Printing & Book Arts

Rideshares and Archives: Reframing the Importance of Materiality

by Rocío Colón Cotto (ND ’26), former research assistant in Rare Books & Special Collections

Rocío showing her exhibition work to family during Notre Dame’s 2026 commencement weekend.

A few weeks ago, I took what was likely the most delightful rideshare of my young adult life. To be sure, it wasn’t because of the quality of my steed (the black car was small and a bit, well, scuffed). Instead, it was because of a conversation with my driver, one which deepened my appreciation for a manuscript I recently studied at Notre Dame’s Rare Books and Special Collections (RBSC).

When I set foot in the teeny black car, things initially followed the usual script: I gave Ashraf, my assigned chauffeur, my four-digit security code, said my quiet “hello!”, and scrolled on my phone mindlessly for a few minutes. However, that morning there was some magic in the dullness of Chicago traffic, and after a few minutes, I began bonding with the stranger in front of me.

In a span of 40 minutes, Ashraf and I chatted about anything and everything. He told me about his two sons, his path to Chicago, and his cultural roots; I told him about my parents, the story behind my name, and my undergraduate adventures. While it was a memorable and enjoyable conversation throughout, there was one moment that I kept coming back to days after I exited the car door: when Ashraf shared with me that “Humans are memories.”

That sole sentence fueled my brain’s thoughts the rest of the week. Specifically, it got me thinking differently about archives and historical documents. As I reflected, I came up with the following claim:

“If humans are memories, and objects are our memory-keepers, then within every material object there exists the essence of at least one person.”

Thus, I concluded that historical objects transcend the simple category of “valuable artifact”; indeed, they become material vessels of human life. Considering this, an object’s materiality must not only be examined through the context of history and science, but also through that of philosophy.

Manuscript cover with gilded flower motifs. Gold on leather.
Holy Family with St. John the Baptist. Pigments on parchment. Folio 1, verso.
Alonso de Resa Patent of Nobility, 12.6 x 9.1 in. University of Notre Dame Hesburgh Libraries, Rare Books and Special Collections, MSH/LAT 0117.

This past year, I collaborated with RBSC to craft a spotlight exhibit on a carta ejecutoria de hidalguía, a beautiful 16th-century Spanish illuminated manuscript which legally certified an individual’s noble status. The investigation used scientific and historical research to understand how the manuscript materially communicated the noble identity of its owner, don Alonso de Resa. Throughout my investigation, I encountered many interesting findings, the most exciting of which was the possible presence of cochineal red, an extremely valuable pigment made from crushed insects in Latin America.

Rocío standing next to the Magellan 400 FESEM Microscope (left), where tiny manuscript pigment samples were analyzed (some results shown on right).
Photo taken by Dr. Khachatur Manukyan.

After my conversation with Ashraf, however, I realized there is much more to the carta ejecutoria’s pigment that I have yet to consider, primarily how it implies the human agency behind the manuscript—namely the labor of artists, manufacturers, and merchants. This is not to say that any of my previous research is inconsequential: it is still true that the likely presence of the cochineal physically demonstrates don Alonso’s wealth and noble status. It is also true that the use of the pigment in this manuscript shows how the Spanish articulated the concept of nobility via a product of global trade.

Harvest and preparation of cochineal.

Sahagún, Bernardino de, et al. Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España (Códice florentino). 1577. Ms. Mediceo Palatino 218–20, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana. Códice Florentino Digital / Digital Florentine Codex, edited by Kim N. Richter et al., bk. 11, fol. 216v, Getty Research Institute, 2023.

That said, the artist’s potential use of cochineal begs us to consider the role of those who made it, as well as its path towards its place in the manuscript. Before that pigment was part of don Alonso’s carta, it was crushed by laborers in Latin America, packaged and sent via boat on an overseas journey to Spain, where it was sold and then used by our artist. As such, the pigments I researched were not only a part of my undergraduate life at Notre Dame, but also that of many other people of the past, all of whom contributed to the making and the history of this manuscript. With renewed understanding, those reds, blues, and greens from don Alonso’s carta passed from being meager pigments to material remnants of humanity, tiny little specks of incalculable value. Amazing how color can carry so much memory and significance, right?

With this in mind, next time you find yourself in RBSC, I encourage you to take a moment. As you touch a book’s old bindings and trace its ink with your eyes, think of the hands and stories that have helped shape it and which have brought it to you in that moment. Truly give yourself time to pause and imagine at least one person who might have touched, created, or used the object before you. With this act, you deepen your connection with history by intentionally engaging with the remnants of our past. In this sense, each visit to RBSC is not unlike a memorable rideshare—a brief encounter that leaves a lasting impression, reframing our understanding of how human memory transcends mere space and time.

Comic Books in Special Collections: Los Supermachos

By Emiliano Aguilar, PhD, Assistant Professor History, University of Notre Dame

The first Saturday every May is celebrated as Free Comic Book Day. Since 2002, this annual event by the North American comic book industry aims to attract new readers to independent comic bookstores and a variety of titles. Books dedicated to superheroes, adaptations of television shows, frightening tales, and more are made available for visitors to these shops. This year, we are highlighting one of the historically rich comics in Rare Books and Special Collections. 

In June 1965, Eduardo del Río García (1934-2017), known by his pseudonym, Rius, released Los supermachos (published by Editorial Meridiano), which, at its height, reportedly sold 200,000 copies a week. The comic book served as a critical commentary on Mexico’s social problems from the perspectives of the fictional town, San Garabato de las Tunas, Cuc., and the eccentric inhabitants of the rural town. Over the issues, Rius introduced his readers to a wide array of characters, such as the central character, Juan Calzónzin. Often the guide for the reader, the indigenous Calzónzin possessed a rich understanding of Mexican and global affairs.

Some of the recurring characters in Los Supermachos, left to right: Arsenio (Don Perpetuo’s bodyguard or enforcer), Don Perpetuo Del Rosal (the local strongman), Chon Prieto (Calzonzin’s friend and the town drunkard), and Juan Calzónzin.

As a medium, comics served as a democratic equalizer for the Mexican public, as no one was barred by geography, class, occupation, or education – even literacy – from reading and sharing them. Another recurring figure in Los Supermachos, the mayor and jefe politico of San Garabato, Don Perpetuo Del Rosal, served as an icon to criticize one-party rule in Mexico. The local strongman, Don Perpetuo, is associated with the ruling party, the RIP, a mockery of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), which dominated Mexico’s political landscape for seventy-one years (1929-2000). Throughout the series, Don Perpetuo served as a foil for Los supermachos as he personally organizes the elections — always sure to declare the ruling RIP the repeated winner, commands his own police force, and builds a collaborative relationship with the local landowners, all while claiming unconditional support from the people.

Ultimately, Rius would leave Los supermachos due to government censorship. During his time authoring the books, the publishing team at Editorial Meridiano often revised Rius’s work to avoid fines and bureaucratic burdens, such as the denial of subsidized paper or restrictions on postal service for distribution. When Rius left, the book kept the title and much of the cast of characters, but without crediting him.

The volumes in Rare Books and Special Collections are mainly from after Rius’s departure. However, each comic offers an opportunity to understand the medium as a form of commentary and education for the Mexican people in the 1970s. 

Published August 20, 1970, issue 242, is perhaps one of the more critical forms of political commentary. Los Supermachos: LA CIA follows Calzónzin, detailing the CIA’s history after he and his friends encounter a Gringo, who had just taken a ten-dollar bill that Calzónzin hoped to claim. Responding to their shock of seeing of seeing a Gringo in their community, he said, “No lo duden que ese billete que se llevo el Gringo sirva de pilón pa controlar a medio mundo. [Make no mistake: that bill the Gringo took is being used as a lever to control half the world.]

Mixing pop cultural icons, such as the Road Runner and Mickey Mouse ears, alongside real figures, the comic gives a grassroots history of the Central Intelligence Agency from a Mexican perspective. The comic uses the visual of two figures tossing a blue ball, which symbolizes the world, back and forth over a wall, as Calzónzin remarks that “Además, de fuentes oficiales norteamericanas se ha afirmado más de una vez la existencia en Moscu de un organism official de lucha sicológica contra la CIA. O lo que es lo mismo orta CIA, nomás que sovietica.” [In fact, U.S. official sources have stated more than once that there is an official agency in Moscow engaged in psychological warfare against the CIA. Or, in other words, another CIA – only Soviet.]

The creator uses each frame as a method to unravel how the CIA asserts its power and U.S. imperialism abroad. A military figure, bookended by the U.S. flag, details how the network of influence relies on three forms of action: political, psychological, and paramilitary. Merging the visual and textual allowed Los supermachos to present their point about the slow creeping Americanization of the world, even in Mexico. In the comic, the cultural changes wrought by U.S. business and pop culture epitomize the CIA’s war for influence. The deliberate use of actual photos, such as for Allen W. Dulles, the former Deputy Director of the CIA, or a Mexican father walking his children who are dressed as U.S. superheroes became ways for the comic to complement the visual and textual critique of U.S. influence.

Los supermachos, even after Rius’ departure, remained a relatively popular comic for Mexico’s public. The book offered an opportunity to educate various aspects of society, such as a later issue on the importance of vaccinations. The comic remained a biting cultural critique of Mexico, authoritarian rule, the Americanization of the world, and much more. Through engaging simple visuals and colloquial Spanish, the indigenous Calzónzin made the complex political, economic, and social issues digestible for a broad audience.

This vibrant and engaging comic run offers not only a window into Mexico, but an entertaining view into the countercultural influence on generations of political cartoonists, such as Lalo Alcaraz, an award-winning contemporary cartoonist known for his comical takes on Latino History and issues, who credits Rius as a major influence on his career as a cartoonist.   

Easter Cards from the Cuala Press

In honor of Easter, we are sharing two images from the Cuala Press Ephemera Collection (EPH 5002). The Cuala Press was founded in 1908 by Elizabeth Yeats, sister of the poet W. B. Yeats and the artist Jack B. Yeats, who illustrated many of the books and broadsides published by the press. The press was operated in Dublin by Elizabeth and her sister Lily Yeats, and later by George Yeats (William’s wife), through the mid-1940s. In addition to their brother, the Yeats sisters employed various Irish women to create illustrations, including Beatrice Glenavy (Elvery), Elizabeth Corbet Yeats, Pamela Colman Smith, Dorothy Blackham, and Mary Cottenham Yeats.

Happy Easter to you and yours from all of us in Rare Books and Special Collections at the University of Notre Dame.

Left: Easter, text by Susan Langstaff Mitchell, undated (EPH 5002-120)
Right: [On Easter Day], text by Temple Lane, undated (EPH 5002-122)

After being closed April 3 in observance of Good Friday, Rare Books and Special Collections will return to regular hours and is open on Monday, April 6, 2026.

A Closer Look at the Gorey-est of Vampires

by Sara Weber, Special Collections Digital Project Specialist

Merriam-Webster defines a vampire as, “the reanimated body of a dead person believed to come from the grave at night and suck the blood of persons asleep.” The Oxford English dictionary gives the middle of the eighteenth century as their earliest evidence for the word vampire, but the concept far predates that in the folklore of various cultures. While characters of a vampiric nature occur as early as Babylonian poems recorded on cuneiform and the ancient Greek writings of Philostratus, the folklore that is most significant to the development of the Western concept of a vampire was that of the Slavic cultures of Eastern Europe. These malevolent beings were seen as gruesome and frightening, because death, disease, and degeneracy were all attributed to their actions and influence. As the vampire became a more familiar figure in Western cultures during the eighteenth century (by 1740 Alexander Pope compared himself to “one of those vampires in Germany” when he went out at night), they were initially perceived in a similar, grotesque manner. However, over time the vampire—though still a villain—came to be portrayed as charismatic and seductive.

Bram Stoker, Dracula. Eighth edition. London: Archibald Constable & Co., 1904.
(Rare Books Small PR 6037 .T617 D7 1904)

Bram Stoker’s 1897 Dracula was not the first vampire in English literature, Robert Southey’s 1801 poem “Thalaba the Destroyer” is generally given that title. Polidori’s short story “The Vampyre” (1819), Varney the Vampire; or, the Feast of Blood (1845–1847), and Sheridan Le Fanu’s “Carmilla” (1872) all preceded it as well. But Stoker’s vampire has become the template against which all modern vampires are compared. The Count is initially described as,

“…a tall old man, clean shaven save for a long white moustache, and clad in black from head to foot, without a single speck of colour about him anywhere. …his hand grasped mine with a strength which made me wince, an effect which was not lessened by the fact that it seemed as cold as ice—more like the hand of a dead than a living man.” (Dracula, Chapter 2)

He is gracious and courteous, however, and as the novel progresses, and he feeds, he becomes less corpse-like. When Mina and Johnathan see him in London, she describes him as “a tall, thin man, with a beaky nose and black moustache and pointed beard… His face was not a good face; it was hard, and cruel, and sensual, and his big white teeth, that looked all the whiter because his lips were so red, were pointed like an animal’s.” (Dracula, Chapter 13)

Count Dracula has become more immortal in popular culture than he was in Stoker’s novel, the subject of numerous theatrical adaptations and cinema classics. The first play—more of a staged reading of the book, really—ocurred the same year as the book was published, as a way of securing copyright protection. In the 1920s, Hamilton Deane and John L. Balderson created their own adaptation, and in 1977 a revival of this version arrived on Broadway. This production featured the design work of Edward Gorey in its sets, costuming, posters, and playbills. He won a Tony Award for the Costume Design, and was nominated for Set Design. The play also won a Tony for Most Innovative Production of a Revival. (Frank Langella was nominated for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play, while Dennis Rosa was nominated for Best Direction of a Play.)

As the play became a popular success as well as a critical one, Gorey’s designs appeared on a variety of merchandise from t-shirts and bags to puzzles, toys, and even a miniature theatre, examples of many of which are found in Notre Dame’s Special Collections.

The Suzy Conway and Robert M. Conway Collection of Gorey Ephemera (EPH 5004) also includes articles and article illustrations, drawings, picture postcards, posters, and correspondence. There are materials relating to his work illustrating book covers for Doubleday, including a few other vampire themed or related texts.

Fronts and back of the dust jackets for Vampires : Two Centuries of Great Vampire Stories, edited by Alan Ryan (Rare Books Medium PS 648 .V35 V3 1987) and 13 Plays of Ghosts and the Supernatural, selected by Marvin Kaye (Rare Books Medium PN 6120 .G45 T45 1990).

In recognition of the centenary of Edward Gorey’s birth and the 25th anniversary of his death, RBSC’s September-October spotlight has highlighted Gorey’s engagement with the New York City Ballet in his distinctive noir style. Although the exhibit officially closes today, it will remain viewable through early next week, before the installation on November 5 of the November-December spotlight. Come visit Special Collections for a further look at some of Gorey’s distinctive work.

Happy Halloween to you and yours
from all of us in Notre Dame’s Special Collections!

Halloween 2024: An Irish Story Produces a Halloween Icon
Halloween 2023: Demon Horses and How to Tame Them
Halloween 2022: A Halloween Tale: “John Reardon and the Sister Ghosts”
Halloween 2021: A Welsh Witch in the Woods
Halloween 2020: Headless Horsemen in American and Irish Legend
Halloween 2019: A Halloween trip to Mexico
Halloween 2018: A story for Halloween: “Johnson and Emily; or, The Faithful Ghost“
Halloween 2017: A spooky story for Halloween: The Goblin Spider
Halloween 2016: Ghosts in the Stacks

Upcoming Events: November 2025

Please join us for the following public events and exhibits being hosted in Rare Books and Special Collections:

Thursday, November 13 at 5:00pm | Italian Research Seminar: “Our Memories, Ourselves: Restoring Political Communities in Purgatorio” by Filippo Gianferrari (UC Santa Cruz).

The Fall 2025 Exhibition | “What through the universe in leaves is scattered”: Mapping Global Dante in Translation

This exhibit traces the global journey of Dante’s masterpiece through rare and valuable printed editions, highlighting how translators, artists, and printers have popularized and reshaped the Commedia. These volumes reveal a dynamic dialogue between Dante’s poetry and the world. A global literary perspective transforms Dante from a monumental yet isolated figure of the European Middle Ages into a central presence in the ongoing international conversation about humanity, the universe, time, eternity, and the power of literature.

Drop in to one of this month’s Exhibit Open Houses to meet and speak informally with one of the curators of the fall exhibition, Mapping Global Dante in Translation. Learn how translators, artists, and printers have popularized and reshaped the Divine Comedy over the centuries and across the world and discover the Library’s many Dante editions.

Friday, November 7, 2:00 – 3:30pm | Exhibit Open House with curator Giulia Maria Gliozzi (Notre Dame, Italian Studies doctoral candidate)

Friday, November 21, 2:00 – 3:30pm | Exhibit Open House with curator Salvatore Riolo (Notre Dame, Italian Studies doctoral candidate)

This exhibit is curated by Salvatore Riolo (Notre Dame, Italian Studies doctoral candidate), and co-curators Giulia Maria Gliozzi (Notre Dame, Italian Studies doctoral candidate); Inha Park (Notre Dame, Italian Studies doctoral candidate); and Peter Scharer (Yale, Comparative Literature doctoral candidate). Theodore J. Cachey Jr. (Notre Dame) and Jacob Blakesley (Sapienza Università di Roma) served as consultants on the exhibit.

The exhibit is co-sponsored by the Center for Italian Studies and the Devers Program in Dante Studies. This and other exhibits within the Hesburgh Libraries are generously supported by the McBrien Special Collections Endowment.

MSH/LAT 0095
(Luz de Sagaceta)

Opening November 5, our next spotlight exhibit will feature several friendship albums being studied this semester by Notre Dame students in a class taught by Vanesa Miseres (Romance Languages & Literatures).

Bibliomania: The Library of Sir Thomas Phillipps curated by Anne Elise Crafton (2024-2025 Rare Books and Special Collections Postdoctoral Research Fellow) will continue through the end of the semester. Portrait of the Artist as a Dance Fan: Edward Gorey and the New York City Ballet curated by Rachel Bohlmann (American History Librarian and Curator) is available to view for just a few more days.

All exhibits are free and open to the public during business hours.

RBSC will be closed during the University of Notre Dame Thanksgiving Break, November 27 – 28.

National Hispanic Heritage Month 2025

We join the Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution, and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in celebrating National Hispanic Heritage Month.

From our Latin American and Latino Studies Archives: Celebration and Resistance

by Payton Phillips Quintanilla, Latin American & Iberian Studies Librarian and Curator

2025 has seen various local and community-based annual public celebrations of Latino heritage scaled-down, postponed, or cancelled altogether out of fears for the safety of participants and community members. Other public celebrations have gone on as planned, with some organizers even rearticulating their yearly “Grito de Independencia” (the September 15th commemoration of the “Cry of Independence” from Spanish colonial rule, specific to the Mexican context) as “Grito de Resistencia” (“Cry of Resistance”). Both paths, however, are guided by a spirit of solidarity, and informed by a history of perseverance, that predate—and are poised to persist beyond—any formal federal recognition of the diverse cultures, accomplishments, and contributions of Latinos in the United States.

Inspired by that same spirit and history, we present three examples, preserved in Notre Dame’s Rare Books and Special Collections, of historical moments when Latino communities organized celebrations of resistance—both public and private, and throughout the calendar year—in direct response to histories and realities of persecution, oppression, exclusion, and erasure.  

1969: “La Fiesta de los Barrios”

“The Fiesta De Los Barrios is the Fiesta of all of our people. For the first time the heritage of our cultural past and the richness of our cultural present will be expressed through the creative talent and skill of our barrio artists, writers and performers. […] It is this pride in ourselves and confidence in our future that has made this magazine and indeed the entire Fiesta possible.”

The name “La Fiesta de los Barrios” carries multiple references: it was a community celebration, a literary journal, and an aspiration for the future. The actual “fiesta” took place in early May, 1969, at Lincoln High School in Los Angeles to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the LA Walkouts: a watershed movement through which Mexican American students protested systemic racism, abuses, and neglect on their campuses, and demanded inclusive and unbiased curricula. (For an introduction to the Walkouts, we suggest you watch this Retro Report hosted by PBS, or this excerpt from PBS’s Latino Americans.)

The journal by the same name, or Fiesta Magazine (MSH/LAT 0099-61), memorialized select verse, prose, and drawings created by community members and event participants, representing a diversity of voices and experiences. And finally, it was the hope, as articulated by photographer Pedro Arias in one of the journal’s opening essays, that all peoples of Mexican descent living in the United States could overcome generational and cultural divides to work together toward common goals: “Y entonces será un día de fiesta, será una FIESTA DE LOS BARRIOS, pero una Fiesta de Los Barrios permanente […]” (And then it will be a day of celebration, it will be a FIESTA DE LOS BARRIOS, but a permanent Fiesta de Los Barrios […]) (7).    

1984: “A benefit for Casa El Salvador Farabundo Martí”  

“Casa El Salvador Farabundo Martí is a solidarity committee of Salvadoran refugees living in the U.S. Our goals are to inform people about the situation in El Salvador and Central America, to promote friendship with our people, and to discourage U.S. intervention in our country.”  

In December 1984, the Chicago-based, refugee-led organization called Casa El Salvador Farabundo Martí hosted a benefit dinner and invited allies and supporters to “share this season of peace with the people of El Salvador.” El Salvador itself, rather than celebrating a season of peace, was deep in a brutal civil war marked by widespread human rights abuses: far from a conflict confined to fighting between armed factions, the government’s military and paramilitary death squads—trained and funded by the United States government—broadly targeted civilian non-combatants. Meanwhile, only a minuscule portion of refugees fleeing El Salvador were granted asylum in the United States. This combination of domestic U.S. policies, enabled by controversial Cold War rhetoric, sparked passionate peace, solidarity, and anti-intervention movements across the country. A snapshot of those efforts, and the array of allies that were involved in them, are captured in this small poster (MSH/LAT 0120 U.S./Central America Cold War Ephemera Collection).

(If this historical moment and its relationship to “sanctuary” activism is unfamiliar to you, an article published earlier this year in The Conversation is a good place to start reading.)

2001: “Encuentro del Canto Popular”

“A Tribute to 20 Years of Culture and Resistance”

San Francisco’s first annual “Encuentro del Canto Popular” (“Gathering of Popular Song”) was organized by volunteers from the community newspaper El Tecolote in 1982. The event was inspired by the life and legacy of Víctor Jara, a Chilean educator, activist, and singer-songwriter who was one of the founding figures of Chile’s—and, ultimately, Latin America’s—nueva canción (new song). This folkloric genre was imbued with such deep social commitment that it became an international movement (the Smithsonian offers an introduction to la nueva canción in their Folkways series). Jara was kidnapped, imprisoned, tortured, and executed by Chile’s military just after the U.S.-backed coup that ousted the democratically-elected president, Salvador Allende, and which began the 17-year military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.

Acción Latina, a community organization based in San Francisco’s Mission District that grew out of El Tecolote, took part in U.S.-based protests against Pinochet’s regime (as can be seen in this post from the Bancroft Library, which now preserves a substantial Acción Latina archive), as well as later solidarity movements. The poster featured here was created for the Encuentro’s 20th year, celebrated in 2001 under the stewardship of Acción Latina. Its lineup of musicians from Nicaragua for this “tribute to 20 years of culture and resistance” was a nod to the protest and dissent expressed in both Nicaragua and the United States following the CIA-led formation in 1981 of the Contras (an umbrella organization of anti-Sandinista combatants), a covert project that ultimately culminated in the Iran-Contra Scandal. The musician wearing the symbol of the United Farm Workers on her shirt speaks to solidarity within and between Latino communities.

Previous Hispanic Heritage Month Blog Posts:

Welcome Back! Spring 2025 in Special Collections

Rare Books and Special Collections welcomes students, faculty, staff, researchers, and visitors back to campus for Spring ’25! Here are a variety of things to watch for in Special Collections during the coming semester.

Special Collections Welcomed Two New Curators in the Fall 2024 Semester

Matthew Knight and Payton Phillips Quintanilla bring subject matter expertise in Irish Studies and Latin American and Iberian Studies.

In addition to stewarding the Hesburgh Libraries’ Irish Studies collections in both general and specialized collections, Knight works with other University faculty members to foster the use of these materials broadly across campus within the larger field of Irish Studies teaching and instruction.

The new Irish Studies Librarian and Curator brings deep expertise in the field of Irish Studies, teaching, and librarianship, including in special collections. He previously served as an Associate Librarian at the University of South Florida and holds an M.A. and Ph.D. in Celtic Languages and Literatures from Harvard University in addition to an M.A. in Library Science from the University of South Florida.

Phillips Quintanilla is responsible for stewarding the Libraries’ Latin American and Iberian Studies collections in both general and specialized collections. She works within the Libraries and across campus to foster the use of the collections broadly within the fields of Latin American Studies and Iberian Studies teaching and instruction. She also supports Latino Studies students and faculty in collaboration with Rachel Bohlmann, American History Librarian and Curator of North Americana.

Phillips Quintanilla brings deep expertise in the field of Latin American and Iberian Studies and teaching, as well as experience in the cultural heritage sector — particularly in areas of provenance and the stewardship of special collections. Before joining the Hesburgh Libraries faculty, she worked as a Research Specialist in the Pre-Hispanic Art Provenance Initiative at the Getty Research Institute. The new librarian and curator holds a Ph.D. in Hispanic Languages and Literatures with a specialization in transatlantic early modern literatures and cultures, as well as an M.A. in Spanish from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), a Master of Professional Writing from the University of Southern California, and a B.A. in Urban and Environmental Policy from Occidental College.

Read the full press release on the Hesburgh Library website.

Fall 2024 Exhibition — Notre Dame Football Kills Prejudice: Citizenship and Faith in 1924

Continuing through the end of January.

“Notre Dame football is a new crusade:
it kills prejudice and stimulates faith.”

— Rev. John F. O’Hara, C.S.C., Prefect of Religion,
Religious Bulletin, November 17, 1924

In the fall of 1924, the University of Notre Dame found great success on the football field and confronted a dangerous and divisive political moment. The undefeated Fighting Irish football team, cemented forever in national memory by Grantland Rice’s legendary “Four Horsemen” column, beat the best opponents from all regions of the country and won the Rose Bowl to claim a consensus national championship. Off the field, Notre Dame battled a reactionary nativist political environment that, in its most extreme manifestation, birthed the second version of the Ku Klux Klan. Sympathizers of this “100% Americanism” movement celebrated white, male, Protestant citizenship and attacked other groups—including Catholics and immigrants—who challenged this restrictive understanding of American identity.

In the national spotlight, Notre Dame leaders unabashedly embraced their Catholic identity. They consciously leveraged the unprecedented visibility and acclaim of the football team to promote—within the very real political constraints of the era—a more inclusive and welcoming standard of citizenship. Attracting a broad and diverse fan base, the 1924 national champion Fighting Irish discredited nativist politics and helped stake the claim of Notre Dame—and Catholics and immigrants—to full citizenship and undisputed Americanness.

Curated by Gregory Bond (Curator of the Joyce Sports Research Collection, Rare Books and Special Collections) and Elizabeth Hogan (Senior Archivist for Photographs and Graphic Materials, University Archives).

Spring 2025 Exhibition — Tragedies of War: Images of World War II in Print Visual Culture

Opening mid-February.

Based predominantly on recently acquired Rare Books and Special Collections European holdings, the exhibition commemorates the end of the Second World War (1939-1945) and explores a diverse assortment of themes including Nazi racial ideology, the Holocaust, Children in War, Resistance, Liberation, and Memories of War. By examining these topics through images created for personal use by ordinary people and for state-sponsored propaganda purposes, the exhibit presents a visual narrative of the war’s profound impact on individuals and societies, offering deeper insight into how war was experienced and remembered.

Curated by Natasha Lyandres (Curator, Rare Books & Special Collections), Jean McManus (Catholic Studies Librarian, University Archives) and Julia Schneider (German Language and Literature and Italian Studies Librarian, Hesburgh Libraries).

Spring Spotlight: Building a Campus Boycott to Support Midwestern Farmworkers

Opening end of January.

In 1980, the University of Notre Dame became the first major university to boycott Campbell Soup products in support of Midwestern farmworkers represented by the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (Toledo, OH). In a few short months, a small and dedicated cohort of students tapped into a growing movement and convinced the campus to act in solidarity.

Curated by Emiliano Aguilar (Assistant Professor of History, University of Notre Dame, and Faculty Fellow, Institute for Latino Studies).

These and other exhibits within the Hesburgh Libraries are generously supported by the McBrien Special Collections Endowment.

All exhibits are free and open to the public during regular hours.

Special Collections’ Classes & Workshops

Throughout the semester, curators will teach sessions related to our holdings to undergraduate and graduate students from Notre Dame, Saint Mary’s College, and Holy Cross College. Curators may also be available to show special collections to visiting classes, from preschool through adults. If you would like to arrange a group visit and class with a curator, please contact Special Collections.

Upcoming Events

Thursday, January 16 at 5:00pm | The Spring 2025 Italian Research Seminar and Lectures will begin with a lecture by 4th-year Ph.D. student in Italian Rookshar Myram (University of Notre Dame) titled: “Forging Effigies in the Commedia: Deification as Artistry.”

Learn more about this and other Events in Italian Studies.

Recent Acquisitions

Special Collections acquires new material throughout the year. Watch this blog for information about recent acquisitions.

Some of the recent acquisitions highlighted on the blog.

Upcoming Events: May 2024 and through the summer

Currently there are no events scheduled to be hosted this summer in Rare Books and Special Collections.

The exhibition Mapping the Middle Ages: Marking Time, Space, and Knowledge runs through the summer and closes in late July. Learn more about the exhibit in this video, and plan your visit this summer.

The current spotlight exhibits are Scripts and Geographies of Byzantine Book Culture (February – May 2023) and The Book Beautiful: A Selection from the Arts & Crafts Movement (April – May 2024). Towards the end of May, we will install a double case spotlight exhibit highlighting Special Collections items relating to the early modern history of mathematics.

Rare Books and Special Collections is open
regular hours during the summer —
9:30am to 4:30pm, Monday through Friday.

RBSC will be closed Monday, May 27th, for Memorial Day and Thursday, July 4th, for Independence Day.

Spotlight Exhibit: The Book Beautiful

by Luke Kelly, Gladys Brooks Conservation Fellow, Hesburgh Libraries

The books in Special Collections’ April-May spotlight exhibit represent a small selection of materials from the University of Notre Dame’s collection that reveal the influence of William Morris on the Arts & Crafts movement. From the printing and binding of Thomas J. Cobden-Sanderson to the illumination and calligraphy of Edward Johnston and Alberto Sangorski, Morris’s ideal of the “book beautiful” was taken up by dozens of other makers who sought in their own way to merge artistry and craftsmanship in the creation of beautiful books.

William Morris founded the Kelmscott Press in 1891 in response to the decorative excesses of the waning Victorian era and declining material and design standards in book publishing. He aimed to print books “which would have a definite claim to beauty, while at the same time they should be easy to read and should not dazzle the eye, or trouble the intellect of the reader by eccentricity of form in the letters.” 1 Perhaps for the first time in Europe since Gutenberg, Morris sought to design the whole book, selecting the paper, type, illustrations, typography, binding, and even the ink that were used in the production of books from the Kelmscott Press.

In making these decisions, Morris was informed by a set of exemplary medieval manuscripts and early printed works that he assembled as a personal reference library. On his historical influences in book design, Morris wrote “I have always been a great admirer of the calligraphy of the Middle Ages, & of the earlier printing which took its place. As to the fifteenth century books, I had noticed that they were always beautiful by force of the mere typography, even without the added ornament, with which many of them are so lavishly supplied.” 2 The University of Notre Dame is fortunate to have two medieval manuscripts (cod. Lat. c. 6 and cod. Lat. e. 4) owned by William Morris.

Lat. c. 6 binding (fore edge) and Morris bookplate.

Cod. Lat. c. 6 is a 13th century copy of Peter Riga’s Aurora. Its undecorated, utilitarian limp parchment binding is charming even in its worn state and exemplifies the authenticity that Morris was attracted to in scribal book production. This book features particularly pronounced “yapped” fore-edge folds on the parchment cover, which were intended to protect the page edges from wear. Yapped edges are commonly found in this style of binding, and Morris would go on to incorporate them in his binding designs for books from the Kelmscott Press.

Except for the Kelmscott Press edition of Chaucer’s works, most books from the press were issued in two possible binding configurations: limp vellum with colored silk ties or a hardcover binding with off-white linen covering the spine and blue paper covering the boards. The Earthly Paradise was one of the last publications by the Kelmscott Press, and this particular copy retains its William Morris-designed limp vellum binding with green silk ties. It was bound for the Kelmscott Press by J. & J. Leighton. The yapped fore-edge folds of this binding are reminiscent of the yapped edges on the Riga Aurora manuscript, though they are more diminutive. The use of green silk (custom dyed at the request of Morris and used for the fore-edge ties on this binding) appears frequently in British Arts & Crafts movement books. A similarly colored green silk was used to sew the copy of Men & Women by the Doves Press in the exhibit and is visible in the gutter fold.

Men & Women opening showing colophon and green silk in gutter.

After taking up bookbinding in 1883 at the suggestion of Jane Morris, William Morris’ wife, Thomas J. Cobden-Sanderson established a new aesthetic for gold tooling in bookbinding using repeating patterns of a custom-designed set of brass finishing tools and high quality leather. Cobden-Sanderson’s aesthetic was also disseminated through his teaching. His students, such as Douglas Cockerell and Katharine Adams, became leading binders in their own right. Like William Morris, Cobden-Sanderson was interested in the design of the whole book and believed that ideally each part of the book’s production–materials, typography, illustration, and binding–should function together harmoniously to communicate the ideas contained by the written word.

Though foremost a bookbinder, Cobden-Sanderson collaborated with Emery Walker—a renowned typographer who assisted Morris in the development of several Kelmscott typefaces—to establish the Dove Press in 1900 four years after the death of William Morris. Their Doves typeface was a more accurate, svelte interpretation of Nicolas Jenson’s roman types from the late 15th century than was Kelmscott’s squat Golden typeface used in The Earthly Paradise (and in Morris’s bookplate).

This Doves Press copy of Men & Women by Robert Browning was “flourished” in the margins by Edward Johnston. Johnston was a calligrapher who was inspired by Medieval and Renaissance manuscripts and helped revitalize illumination and lettering in the Arts & Crafts movement. Ironically, Johnston is perhaps best known today for creating the sans serif typeface used by the London Underground transportation system than for his floral calligraphy.

Sometime between 1901 and 1905, Edward Johnston taught calligraphy at the Central School in London to Francis Sangorski, an virtuosic bookbinder and younger brother of Alberto Sangorski. Though Alberto was initially a bookkeeper from Francis’s bindery, Sangorski & Sutcliffe, Alberto learned the rudiments of calligraphy, quill pen cutting, and gold illumination from Francis. In 1905 at the age of 43 (coincidentally the same age Thomas J. Cobden-Sanderson gave up lawyering for bookbinding) Alberto Sangorski established himself as a calligrapher.3

This illuminated manuscript of John Milton’s On the morning of Christ’s nativity: an Ode was created by Alberto Sangorski sometime between 1905 and 1910. Alborto Sangorski developed his own miniaturist painting style based on Medieval and Pre-Raphaelite artists, which can be seen in this manuscript and in the manuscript of Dante Gabriel Rosetti’s The Blessed Damozel also on display in the exhibit. Alberto’s work drifted from the historical modeling of other Arts & Crafts figures and embraced the Edwardian era’s exuberance in design and catered to the conspicuous consumption of the truly “Gilded Age.”

This Alberto Sangorski manuscript of Dante Gabriel Rosetti’s poem The Blessed Damozel was bound by his brother Francis’s bindery, Sangorski & Sutcliffe. Francis Sangorski began his bookbinding apprenticeship in 1901 under Douglas Cockerell, another leading figure in the Arts & Crafts movement who himself trained under Thomas J. Cobden-Sanderson at the Doves Bindery. This binding is typical of Sangorski & Sutcliffe’s higher-end design bindings, featuring elaborate gold tooling and decorative leather onlays of thinly skived crimson goatskin. Sangorski & Sutcliffe’s most expensive and celebrated binding of an 1884 imprint of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám sank on the RMS Titanic on April 14, 1912. Francis Sangorski drowned six weeks later while swimming in the English Channel. Like the Milton manuscript, this codex was likely created early in Alberto Sangorski’s career sometime between 1905 and 1910.

 

Footnotes

1. Morris 1.

2. Ibid.

3. The Cinderella of the arts 41.

 

Bibliography

Morris, William. A note by William Morris on his aims in founding the Kelmscott Press. Hammersmith: Kelmscott Press, 1898.

Shepherd, Rob. The Cinderella of the arts: a short history of Sangorski & Sutcliffe. London & New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll Books, 2015.

Upcoming Events: April 2024

Please join us for the following public events and exhibits being hosted in Rare Books and Special Collections:

Thursday, April 11 at 5:00pm | Italian Research Seminar: “Boccaccio, the Disguised Revolutionary” by Martin Eisner (Duke University).

In the spring exhibition, Mapping the Middle Ages: Marking Time, Space, and Knowledge, primary objects bring to the fore the tension between literal and figurative arrangements of space, time, and knowledge during the Middle Ages.

This exhibition is curated by David T. Gura, PhD, Curator of Ancient and Medieval Manuscripts.

The current spotlight exhibits are Scripts and Geographies of Byzantine Book Culture (February – April 2024) and A Medieval Nun’s Choir Book (February – early April 2024). The current bi-monthly spotlight will run through April 5, with a new exhibit featuring a selection of books from the Arts & Crafts movement being installed on April 8.

Special Collections will be closed on March 29, in observance of Good Friday, and will be open regular hours on Easter Monday (April 1).