The Associates of the Boston Public Library funds the North Bennet Street School (NBSS) Conservation Internship, which provides a first- or second-year Bookbinding student with hands-on experience in book conservation at the Boston Public Library. Last year’s intern, Carmen Torrado Gonzalez, shares her research into the book phenomenon known as Marcas de Fuego, or “marks of fire."
BPL Summer Conservation Intern Identifies A Rare Book Phenomenon in the Special Collections
As the Boston Public Library Conservation Intern, I researched a book phenomenon called Marcas de Fuego, or “marks of fire. "Marcas de Fuego appeared in Colonial Mexico, and were used to declare book ownership by branding the edge of the text block with an idenitifiable monogram or symbol. When I first saw one, I wondered how they were made, by who, and why. I began answering these questions by looking into the history of Colonial Mexico.
In 1492, Catholic missionaries arrived in America. They aimed to convert the indigenous population, and by the early 16th-century had ingratiated themselves into the local Mexican economy. Their economic power allowed them to build libraries and collections of texts. The combination of economic stability and ownership of valuable goods made missionary orders vulnerable to theft. In response to this vulnerability, they branded the edges of their books with the same cattle brands that deterred cattle theft. An idea that is baffling to think about doing to a book now!
In their defense, it was successful, as removing the Marcas de Fuego damaged the text block. All major missionary orders in Colonial Mexico were using Marcas de Fuego by the mid-1500s. In 1821, when Mexico gained independence from Spain, the new government worked to separate itself from its history of colonial oppression by dismantling institutions symbolic of said history–including wealthy religious orders. Their library collections were ultimately confiscated and widely dispersed. Today, Marcas de Fuego can be found worldwide, including at the BPL
One of the three books I studied in the BPL’s Ticknor Collection, El peregrino septentrional atlante, has a dramatic Marca de Fuego that was easy to identify using the Collective Catalog of Marcas de Fuego, a multi-institutional effort to catalog these marks. Thanks to their work, I determined the origin of the cattle brand to be the Convent of Santa Clara in Mexico City, and the order of nuns who lived there and used the brand to be the Province of the Holy Gospel of Mexico. This mark would have been branded near or after the text block’s printing (1737) . Most likely after, since these books passed from missionary to missionary as resources for spreading their faith. Eventually, it became a part of the permanent collection of the Province of the Holy Gospel of Mexico.
An example of a Marca de Fuego, branded on the top edge (head) of El peregrino septentrional atlante, 1737.
Notably, because Marcas de Fuego were primarily used by religious institutions, it’s common to see these marks on religious texts. Another common feature of books with Marcas de Fuego are their bindings–limp, laced-case parchment bindings. Key elements of these bindings are documented by Dr. Martha Elena Romero Ramirez in her doctoral thesis, Limp, laced-case bindings in parchment on sixteenth-century Mexican printed books: the cover material is parchment, there are no boards, and leather thong sewing supports are laced into the cover.
The three examples of limp, laced-case parchment bindings from the BPL’s Ticknor Collection I studied.
Dr. Ramirez helped me conclude the books I surveyed at the BPL with Marcas de Fuego had their contemporary bindings still attached to the text block. Because Marcas de Fuego aren't visible when the book is stored on a shelf, knowing what kind of binding to look for was vital when searching through a collection. One of my favorite memories from my internship was when the conservation team joined me in a mad dash to find Marcas de Fuego in the stacks of the Ticknor collection. To know where these marks came from, who once owned the book, is to know the book’s life.
It was an honor to have made this small contribution to the remarkable history housed in the BPL’s Special Collections, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to have done so.
Want to hear more from Carmen? Check out our YouTube Channel!
