Father Jack Clark Robinson, OFM, stresses that the Santa Barbara Mission Archive-Library is not limited to just one religion. It may be located at the Old Mission, and he is a Catholic priest, but it is a secular nonprofit educational and research organization.
“Buildings and art can be inspired by religion, but history is history,” said Robinson, the Archive-Library’s director for the past two years.
Anyone can conduct research there, but usually by appointment only. However, it now offers monthly open houses, including one on Saturday from 9:30 a.m. to noon. Admission is free, with donations suggested.
Don’t confuse the Archive-Library with the Mission Museum. Both are in the Old Mission, and affiliated with Franciscans, but each is a separate nonprofit organization. Museum exhibits are included in the self-guided tours of the Old Mission (Saturday also is a free admissions day celebrating the beginning of Advent).
Why are there so many treasures at Santa Barbara’s Mission? In 1833, 12 years after Mexico won independence, its new government secularized the Spanish missions. The displaced Franciscan friars brought their most revered possessions — documents, maps, art, books and artifacts — to Bishop Francisco García Diego, in residence in Santa Barbara.
For the open house, Robinson and his staff have selected an array of rare and noteworthy items from the collections.
Inside the “Treasure Chest”
The Library-Archive, completed in 1967, replaced a building from 1905 that housed the friars’ dining room and kitchen. It is entered through large wooden doors at the far left end of the Mission’s front arcade.
Inside, the Mission Gallery has display cabinets and historical artifacts along the walls. For the open house, the long wooden table at its center will be filled with relics, books, photographs and other artifacts.
There’s ample wall space to display all 21 of Edwin Deakin’s paintings of the California Missions, completed in 1899. It is worth a visit if only to see the vibrant oils, which capture some Missions in disrepair and others, such as the Old Mission, simply beautifully realized.
Those are just a few of the Archive-Library’s paintings; several more are in the adjacent office, including a rendering of Our Lady of Refuge by Mariano Borja from 1841.
Nearby is a huge leather-bound book, “De Architectura.” Written in the first century by Roman architect M. Vitruvius Pollio and published in Spanish in 1787, it was hand-carried by the missionary friars who founded the California Missions. It is opened to the drawing that inspired Padre Antonio Ripall’s 1820 neoclassical design of Old Mission’s current façade.
Robinson reveals some of his favorite items by whipping a cloth off a glass cabinet, revealing what collections manager Andrew Walsh calls “the treasure chest.” He points at four large iron keys on a huge key ring — the keys to the Mission Church crypt. Each fits in a corner so a rod can be slid through the bows (the keys’ heads) to lift the heavy lid.
A modest piece of cloth, which is all that remains of a stole worn by Father Junipero Serra while he heard confessions, is among the possessions of the now-sainted priest.
Not everything is related to Catholic history. “The Game of Base Ball,” a book by Henry Chadwick and published in 1876, “is so old that ‘baseball’ is still two words,” Robinson said. “A friar sent off 25 cents for it.”
Records for Research
Open house visitors can peek inside the huge Reading Room, which contains more than 10,000 non-circulating books and other materials. Another 5,000 rare books, documents, photographs and more are kept in a climate-controlled room that is off-limits to the public. The most precious items are stored in a fire- and earthquake-proof vault.
Researchers must request those archive items in advance.
“It’s like in a fine restaurant when a patron orders off the menu,” Robinson said. “The dish is then brought and presented to them, but they aren’t allowed in the kitchen.”
He oversees three staff members augmented by academic interns and friars from around the country who volunteer for weeks or months.
Collections manager Walsh said the collection of Mission bautismos (baptism), marriage and burial records is used more than any other resource.
“About a third of our visitors are looking for genealogical records, another third are academics, and the rest vary,” he said.
Many items have been digitalized, but it is a huge task, according to Walsh.
“Archives provide job security,” he joked. “Much of what we do is conserving and stabilizing our collections, making sure they survive.”
Two treasures of the Archive-Library that won’t be on display at the open house are the papal bulls (charters), establishing Baja and Norte California as a new diocese and naming Francisco Garcia Diego as its first bishop. Handwritten in Latin in chancery script, they were signed by Pope Gregory XVI in Rome on April 27, 1840. The lead papal seals (or bullae) are attached. They are safely kept with other venerated items in the vault.
