The Bancroft Library at 100: A Celebration, 1906–2006
Codex Fernández Leal
Anyone visiting the Berkeley Art Museum this fall will encounter a stunning display of history and material culture in The Bancroft Library at 100, on view in Gallery 4. The exhibition commemorates the 1906 arrival of Hubert Howe Bancroft's collections on the UC Berkeley campus with selections from the library's wide-ranging holdings, from Egyptian papyri to original Beat-era manuscripts, from the nugget that started the Gold Rush to construction photographs of the new span of the Bay Bridge.
One of the undisputed treasures from these collections is the double-sided Codex Fernández Leal, named for the Mexican minister who sponsored its publication in 1895. Though produced in the mid-sixteenth century, this codex retains many pre-Columbian features, including its distinctive pictographic writing and its use of amatl (the Nahuatl word for paper). Like its ancient predecessors, this codex records royal land titles and genealogy—that of the Cuicatec rulers in what is now northern Oaxaca—along with related historical events and calendrical themes.
When Spanish soldiers, merchants, and missionaries took control of Mexico and dispossessed the Indian rulers and priests, they destroyed most of the ancient codices as works of superstition and witchcraft. Even amatl-making was banned as a form of idolatry, because of its frequent use in religious ceremonies. The Codex Fernández Leal is vital and tangible evidence of this turbulent history, as well as a record of the Cuicatec world.
Karen L. Bennett
Assistant Curator for Education
The Bancroft Library at 100 is made possible with the generous support of the Wells Fargo Foundation. 
