Biblioteca Francisco Xavier Clavigero in the Universidad Iberamericana in Mexico City

Two great conferences on Maximilian here in Mexico City-- one recently concluded at the Centro de Estudos de la Historia de México, and another is in progress in Mexico's National Palace, both free and open to the public and with a wide variety of accomplished scholars.

I wanted to note one of the talks from the former which took place on June 2, 2014: Teresa Matabuena's about the magnificent holdings related to the Second Empire in the archives of the Universidad Iberoamericana's Biblioteca Francisco X. Clavigero. She mentioned just a few of them-- from my notes:

1. The manuscript "Les Vaincus du 5 du mai" (The Defeated of May 5)
by a French soldier, decorated with his own very elaborate and beautiful little paintings of birds and flowers. (Quite extraordinary to see.)

2. Folletería (Pamphlettes)
Including "Reseña de las Fiestas de la Independencia" and "Calendario Histórico de Maximiliano."

3. Revistas (Magazines)
Among them: El Museo Universal, a Spanish magazine thast was published bimonthly, and included many articles and notes on Maximilian; and L'Illustration, Journal Universal, a French magazine.

4. Books
Over 400, including L'Empire de Maximilien by Paul Gaulot, Paris, 1890; a copy of the very rare Reglamento del ceremonial de la Corte (the first edition of 1865); Estudios de grabados por autores mexicanos, a specially bound edition of 186(?) owned by Maximilian.

5. Concha Lombardo Collection
Concha Lombardo was the wife of General Miramón, a key figure in the Second Empire and one of the two generals exceuted in 1867 with Maximilian. While the Miramón papers are in Palermo, Italy, this one contains many crucial items for anyone studying the period and its violent end.

6. A photographic album of some 200 personalities of the period
The original has been returned to its owner, but a complete copy is in the catalog.

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P.S. My talk about my novel, The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire, El ultimo príncipe del Imperio Mexicano, together with my translator, the noted writer and poet Agustín Cadena, will be on Tuesday 15 of July in the conference in the National Palace. More about that here.

Who was Francisco Xavier Clavigero? An 18th century Mexican Jesuit and historian of note. Among his many works is The History of [Lower] California, translated from the Italian by Sara E. Lake, Stanford University Press, 1937. (Why Italian? There's a story.) I relied on Clavigero quite heavily in the section of my book, Miraculous Air: Journey of as Thousand Miles through Baja California, the Other Mexico, about the tragedy of the Jesuit missions. So just hearing his name, it seems like a little wave from an old amigo.