¡Viva México!

Named after Jose Tudela de la Orden, this sixteenth-century Aztec codex is based upon an earlier pre-Columbian Aztec manuscript. Although there are very few surviving pre-conquest codices, the bookmaking tradition continued into the colonial period, under the watchful eye of the Spanish.

The Codex Tulane is one of several early Colonial manuscripts from the Mixtec-speaking region of southern México. The content is primarily genealogical, presenting lists of the native rulers of two Mixtec communities. The original was painted on six strips of animal hide overlapped and glued together. It was produced in the mid-sixteenth century for the native nobility. The format is a roll, or scroll. The codex contains the figures of one hundred and twelve male and female figures, common to genealogical manuscripts. The female figures are depicted seated opposite their husbands. Twelve men are seated flanking a campfire, the standing men are priests, two deities are dressed in animal costumes. One man is seated on the left side of a body of water that represents the name of a town. The Codex Tulane is likely an anthology of material drawn from older, now lost, pictorial manuscripts. The opening scene of the Codex Tulane depicts an offering made to two deities who are associated with a Hill of the Palm Tree. These specific deities appear in other Mesoamerican codices.

Bartolomeo de las Casas, the first Roman Catholic Bishop of Chiapas, was a major force behind the passage in 1542 of Spanish laws prohibiting Indian slavery and safeguarding the rights of the Indians. He was met with powerful opposition for his pleas on behalf of the Indians, but he captured the attention of Charles V, who eventually made de las Casas a bishop for his philanthropic work. De las Casas marred his record as a social reformer by condoning the enslavement of black Africans in order to spare the Indians. His writings were widely translated and widely read. English translations of his works were used to foment English feeling against the Spanish and to promote the belief that Spanish colonies would be better off in English hands. In 1525, a Royal Order granted printer Jacobo Croberger a monopoly on the book trade in New Spain. In 1539, printing was established in the New World through a contract between Croberger and another printer.

This set of letters from Hernán Cortés to Carlos I, King of Spain, were reports carefully designed to defend Cortés’ credentials as commander and loyal subject, justifying his shaky legal position. The letters were embellishments of the conquest of Tenochtitlan, depicting Cortés as an extraordinary military strategist winning a new empire for his king. Cortés wrote five letters. One is lost; another, lost and recovered in the mid-nineteenth century. The three surviving letters were first printed in this edition, illustrated with copperplates designed and engraved by Manuel Galicia de Villavicencio of México and a map by José Mariano Navarro based on a 1541 representation of the coast of “Mar de el sur.” This edition also included a reproduction of a Mexican manuscript illustrating tribute paid in kind to Moctezuma, a list of viceroys from Cortés to the Marquis de Croix, an account of Cortés’ voyage to Baja California, and a report of all subsequent expeditions to California up to 1769. The edition is a masterpiece of Mexican colonial printing including a title-page in red and black with a large engraved vignette and pictorial initial on the dedication page. The editor, Antonio Lorenzana, archbishop of México from 1766-1772, deliberately promoted the printing arts in México during his term. This book was the most lavishly illustrated book to have been printed in New Spain up to 1770.

Arte Méxicana, a grammar of Nahautl, is the first printed work by a mestizo, the first published indigenous-language work written by a native Nahautl speaker, and the first work in an indigenous language of México written by a Jesuit. Born not quite two generations after the completion of the conquest of México, Antonio del Rincon was a native of Texcoco, a descendant of the tlaloque, the nobility of Texcoco. It is likely that his family was still using Nahautl as its first language. Rincon was as facile in Nahautl as he was in Spanish. He entered the Jesuit order at Teopoztlan in August of 1573, the year after the Jesuits arrived in México. Rincon’s comprehension of Nahautl as it was spoken in the post-Conquest period was particularly helpful in creating this successful grammar. Rincon was the first Mexican linguist to recognize the significance of certain aspects of Nahautl, such as the duration of the sounded vowel and the glottal closure. Rincon also first proposed the interpretation of the meaning of the name “México” as “in the middle of the moon.” His grammar was in constant demand for nearly a century, until its use was eclipsed by a 1645 grammar produced by another Jesuit. Rincon’s grammar contains an eighteen page list of all the Nahautl words used in his grammar. The book contains eight woodcut initials, five of which are historiated. Printer Pedro Balli was a native of Salmanca who arrived in México sometime around 1569 as a bookseller. Pedro Balli was the fourth printer of record in New Spain by royal decree of King Philip II. His first publication appeared in 1574. The title-page has one of the earliest instances of the Jesuit imprint in México.

Augustin Vetancurt was a Franciscan scholar of Nahuatl. In the seventeenth century the study of Nahuatl reached its apex through the dedicated work of sixteenth century Franciscan scholars. Vetancurt’s Nahuatl grammar includes a comprehensive index, a short catechism, and instructions on the commandments and the sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church. Vetancurt begins his grammar with the insight that proscribed study of European languages had its shortcomings when applied to New World languages, although in the end he was hard-pressed to find his way around contemporary pedagogy.

In 1585, Mexican bishops authorized an official catechism that differed from that of the Roman Catholic Church. This translation from Latin into Nahuatl by Manuel Perez is of the accepted Roman catechism.

Published anonymously, this was unofficially recognized as the work of Father Ortega early on and then later officially recognized in an 1887 reprint. The work consists of an account of the conquest of the province of Nayarit; the beginning, progress, and decline of the spiritual conquest of the province of Pimeria Alta; and the progress, various discoveries, and contemporary state of Pimeria Alta. It ends with a diary of a voyage made by Father Consag in 1751 north between the Sierra Madre range and the ocean. For the sections on Pimeria Alta, now northern Sonora and southern Arizona, the author states that he found a collection of the papers of Father Kino, who founded the first mission there. Ortega culled information from various Kino manuscripts and other sources. One of Kino’s manuscripts that Ortega claimed access to, however, is in question. Another writer claimed to have had access to it in Spain, whereas Ortega was writing in México during that same time. It is possible there were two manuscripts of Kino’s original work. Pimeria Alta was named for the Pima and O’odham peoples of the Sonoran Desert. The Pima launched a fierce but failed revolt for independence from Spain in 1751.

On June 21, 1841 an expedition made up of one battery of artillery, more than two hundred soldiers, and fifty merchants (accompanying a long wagon train filled with merchandise) and other citizens headed from the Republic of Texas toward the Mexican province of New Mexico. The expedition was organized by then Texas president General Mirabeau B. Lamar, who charged the group with finding a new route over which to open direct trade with México. Lamar believed that the citizens of New Mexico were discontent and ready for revolt. His hope was to bring the area on the eastern side of the Rio Grande into Texas. In the event that this takeover failed, Lamar directed the Texan traders to make a commercial treaty with the Mexican authorities. The expedition wandered through thousands of miles of unknown territory, was beset by hostile Indian tribes, and nearly starved to death. In the end, the group was taken prisoner by Mexican troops, their goods confiscated, and marched to Mexico City. George Wilkins Kendall, an American traveler with the expedition, was held for nearly a year before his United States citizenship gained him release. In 1837, Kendall and a partner ran the first issue of the New Orleans “Picayune.” He joined the Texan Santa Fe Expedition as a reporter. After his return to New Orleans he published a series of articles about the disaster for his paper and eventually put the articles together in a two-volume set whose first printing sold forty thousand copies. This document contains inquiries made by the United States concerning George W. Kendall and Franklin Coombs, another of the expedition’s captured American citizens.

This is the second official Mexican printing of the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo. The second printing included protocols necessary for the conclusion of the treaty. The full text appeared in English and Spanish on facing pages. Amendments made to the treaty by the United States were added, followed by a statement by Mexican commissioners accepting the modifications. Mexican signatories stressed that México was poor, internally divided, and unprepared for a struggle with a much more stable and prosperous United States. The treaty ended war between the United States and México but resulted in the loss of fifty-five percent of Mexican territory: what is now New Mexico, California, Arizona, Texas and parts of Colorado, Nevada and Utah. México’s independence from Spanish rule in 1821 had propelled it into the modern age. But on the heels of independence came devastating invasions, particularly those by the United States. Under these conditions, printed material was often of limited production. A lack of basic materials such as movable type and paper curtailed the Mexican printing industry. Still, there were many printers in nineteenth century México. Ignacio Cumplido (1811-1887) was it’s most prolific. He printed calendars, newspapers and magazines and became known for the high quality of his work. Cumplido made several trips to Europe and the United States to obtain type and presses. These trips also allowed him to remain knowledgeable on methods of print production and style. He helped to consolidate a Mexican visual identity built on a diversity of European and American typographic elements and styles blended with Spanish tradition.

Benito Juarez was the son of Zaputeco Indians who died when he was very young. Juarez studied for the priesthood, but changed his focus to law, receiving his law degree in 1831. That same year, he won a seat on the municipal council. In 1841, he became a judge and the governor of Oaxaca. Juarez was exiled to New Orleans in 1853, when conservatives took over the government. Two years later he returned to México with a new liberal government as the Minister of Justice, presiding over the Supreme Court. In 1858 conservatives again took over the government. Juarez went to Vera Cruz, where he created a government in exile. In 1861 he became President of México. He was the first Mexican leader who did not have a military background and the first full-blooded indigenous national to serve as President or, for that matter, to lead any country in the Western Hemisphere. As President, he resisted French occupation, restored México to a republic, promoted equal rights for the Indian population, and reduced the political and financial power of the Roman Catholic Church, in part by confiscating church property.

A founder of the Mexican Association of Press Photographers, Agustin Casasola began working as a newspaper typographer, later becoming a reporter and finally settling on his interest as a photojournalist sometime between 1904 and 1906. The timing of this career change could not have been better. Casasola’s photographs documented presidential festivities, firing squads, the extremes of Mexican wealth, provincial and government armies, prim schoolgirls, female soldiers and shoe factory workers. They documented the political, economic and social changes of Mexico during the early decades of the twentieth century. As a collection, they reveal the cross-cultural tumult of transition. When the newspaper, El Imparial, folded in 1914, Casasola collected its archives, saving negatives from destruction. He used many of these photographs for his Album Historia Graphico, covering the events of the Mexican Revolution.

Text (essays in English, poems in English and Tzotzil) is taken from Conjuros y ebriedades: cantos de mujeres mayas. Illustrations printed in black on off-white art paper. The three-dimensional cover, a mask, was cast from recycled cardboard, corn silk, and coffee. The mask represents the Mayan earth goddess Kaxail. Her eyes open onto handmade endpapers blackened by soot and studded with palm fronds. Illustrated with silk-screen prints based on ancient Mayan folk-art patterns. Issued in a brown cardboard clamshell box, painted and stenciled in black, lined with the same black endpapers used in the book.

Forward by author Barnaby Conrad (1922-), a California native who attended the University of Mexico, where he studied painting and began a career as an amateur bullfighter. Edition of four hundred and eighty-seven copies. University of Utah copy is no. 91, signed by Richard J. Elkus, and printers Edwin and Robert Grabhorn.

José Montoya studied art at the California College of Arts & Crafts and California State University. He helped found the Rebel Chicano Art Front, later renamed the Royal Chicano Air Force, in the 1970s. The RCAF organized cultural, educational, and political activities in the Sacramento area. Binding cover is handmade cogon grass paper from the Philippines. Typeface is Spectrum. Drawings printed from zinc plates. Design, presswork and binding by Carolee Campbell. Edition of 195 copies, numbered and signed. University of Utah copy is no. 131.

Inspired by the home of painters Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, this is a tale of a rebirth of life through the grand feast day of death, el Diá de los Muertos. The book creates life-size calavera for vertical display. Woodcuts by Karen Kunc. Six sheets, printed on one side, joined to form a continuous strip, folded accordion style. First and last sheets are cut-outs. Printed from 10pt. Garamont light types. Multi-color reduction woodcut on Frankfort cream paper. Issued in black paper slipcase. Signed by the author and the artist.

Images produced with pressure printing, a letterpress application. Matte medium was used to fasten various materials to paper printing plates: string delineates the course of the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo, and salt creates textured areas representing the bosque and ocean. The branches are tamarisk (salt cedar), an invasive, red-stemmed, flowering tree that grows profusely along the river. The text is superimposed on the plates. The plates are mounted on a strip folded accordion style. Fitted with a string loop for hanging, the book is issued in an envelope.

Handbound by the author in brown cloth and Mexican bark paper onlaid in a Zapotec design on the front cover. Letterpress printed on two colors of Confetti paper. Illustrated throughout with block prints by the author and embellished with two pop-up illustrations which are hand-colored and contain real feathers. Laid in a green handmade paper container, which is tied with yucca. Issued in clamshell. Edition of one hundred and twenty-five copies, the first twenty-five of which are specially bound in leather and contain textual upgrade variations, signed by the author. University of Utah copy is no. 19.

Three short stories written in the sultry magic realism style often associated with the geography of México by Carolyn Hall during a retreat. Designed and produced by Alicia Bailey. Bound in a dos-a-dos pamphlet-stitched wrap-around cover of 130 lb. cotton watercolor paper with hand-applied acrylic patterning and tipped in cover illustrations and title. Text and title page illustrations are laser-printed on 80 lb. Howard Mill crushed leaf paper; illustrations are color inkjet on mulberry paper tipped in. Decorative page elements are hand stamped. Book is held shut with dyed cotton string and coconut beads. University of Utah copy is no. 41, signed by the author and artist.