WOMEN IN MEMORY

 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL COLLECTION  |  GRAPHIC COLLECTION

On the ocassion of International Women's Day on March 8, the Biblioteca Virtual del Patrimonio Bibliográfico presents this microsite titled Women in Memory, composed by a vast selection of works from this library that share a common link: the figure of women throughout time. It includes works about women, whose subjects are of particular interest for women, or whose authors are women. 

This collection encompasses a total of 1667 works from the 12th century to the 21st, divided into two large collections: the first is comprised of bibliographical works, which includes works about women or produced by women; and the second is constituted by graphic works, the majority of which are the portraits of some of the greatest female figures in universal history.

THE BIBLIOGRAPHICAL COLLECTION

The bibliographical collection is comprised of 733 works from the 12th century to the 21st. They are mainly written in Spanish, but there are also some in Latin, French, Basque, Catalan, English, German and Italian. This collection is predominantly comprised of printed monographies, but it also includes works of different types such as manuscripts, engravings (which are part of other monographies) and handwritten music sheets.

One of the most notable works among this collection is the map Cristiandad e Islam en el año 1086, drawn by the Spanish teacher and pedagogue Jimena Menéndez Pidal to illustrate La España del Cid‎, written by her father, Ramón Menéndez-Pidal, and published in 1929.

Among the subjects of these works, religious ones are particularly notable. They recount the lives, martyrdoms and miracles of female saints of the Catholic Church. These works highlight the virtuosity and devotion that characterize female figures such as Saint Catherine, Saint Philomena, Saint Gertrude, etc. Some of these works describe beatification and canonization processes, like Compendio histórico-poético de la vida, muerte y beatificación de la señora Doña Juana de Aza, madre del Patriarca Santo Domingo de Guzmán (1829), by Jerónimo del Castillo; while others praise spiritual recollection and a secluded life as ways to connect with God, as Instrucciones para el mejor recogimiento de las mujeres bajo la advocación de San Miguel y San Felipe Neri or Tratado histórico-apologético de las mujeres emparedadas, by Marcos Antonio de Orellana. We also find sermons, panegyrics, novenas, funeral prayers, etc., as well as the works of significant authors such as Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Santa Teresa de Jesús or María de Jesús de Ágreda. 

Other well-represented subjects in this collection are those related to judicial proceedings, particularly those regarding succession, inheritances and primogenitures, as well as nobility feuds and criminal proceedings, such as those in Sumario de toda la probança hecha contra Hernando Lopez de Heredia, en el processo de Susana Canellon sobre sequestro‎.

As might be expected, this microsite also includes works related to feminism and women's rights. An example of that are the lectures published in the 1920s by the Real Academia de Jurisprudencia y Legislación‎‎ on feminist education, women's works, feminist influence in the legislation of the time, human traifficking, the rights of married women, etc. 

There are also works on subject such as feminine hygiene, health and beauty dating from the late 19th century and the early 20th century in which surgeries, excercises, cosmetic formulas and hygenic precepts for the "care and conservation of the face" and for the "development and preservation of beauty" are described.  For example, The woman beautiful: a practical treatise on the development and preservation of woman's health and beauty, and the principles of taste in dress (1900) or the Guía higiénico-cosmética de la mujer en el tocador ó Colección ordenada y completa de cuantas reglas, operaciones y fórmulas higiénicas reclaman la salud, la belleza y la educación física de la mujer (1886). 

>>Works written by women