Letters exchanged between Agustí Duran i Sanpere and Eduard Toda: the Toda Manuscripts donated to the Historical Archive of The City of Barcelona (1920-1938)

In 1917 Barcelona City Council decided to separate the oldest documents in its municipal archive – dating from the 13th century to the 1830s – from the everyday administrative documents, and to house them in an emblematic building, the Casa de l’Ardiaca (Archdeacon’s House), thereby creating the Historical Archive of the City of Barcelona (AHCB).
Agustí Duran i Sanpere (1887-1975), archivist, historian and archaeologist, was the first director of the new institution. He remained in charge until 1957, through good times and bad, such as the Spanish Civil War and the years of the Franco dictatorship. The new archive was created as a municipal historical archive, and also as a “city archive”. The document collections were intended to make it easier to understand and study the activities of previous generations in Barcelona: politics, the economy, urban planning, how work was organised, customs, everyday life, and so on. With Duran's drive and support, the early years saw significant donations from local people – Eduard Toda, Agustí Massana, Rossend Serra Pagès and Ferran de Sagarra, for example – as well as documentation from the city's guilds – locksmiths, shoemakers, etc. There were also big acquisitions: the Veguer archive, notarial and commercial documents, maps, plans, engravings, drawings, etc. A library and a Barcelona newspaper archive were established too.
Eduard Toda i Güell (1855-1941), a diplomat and writer, as well as a passionate and expert bibliophile, built up a fabulous library over the course of his life – containing between 60,000 and 80,000 volumes – which he donated to various cultural institutions in the country.
The AHCB received a valuable donation from Eduard Toda between 1920 and 1938, thanks to his interest in establishing and developing the institution, and to his personal friendship with Agustí Duran i Sanpere and his family.
Donations of books, manuscripts, engravings and photographs arrived in a series of shipments sent from his home at Escornalbou Castle, in Argentera, Tarragona, to the Casa del Ardiaca, where a room was dedicated to him – the Sala Toda. He donated a collection of some 6,000 volumes of foreign works about Spain, biographies, history and travel books, and part of his personal library, a collection of engravings with portraits of artists, writers, kings and so on, as well as a collection of photographs and around 50 manuscripts.
Managing and handling Eduard Toda's donation involved an extensive exchange of correspondence with Agustí Duran i Sanpere. The surviving letters bear witness to Toda’s frequent consultations with Duran about historical and archaeological matters, Duran's visits to Escornalbou, alone or with his family, Toda's involvement in selecting and classifying the collection, the works being carried out at Casa del Ardiaca, the construction of the Sala Toda, managing the dispatch – which he supervised personally – of boxes of books, manuscripts, and so on. 
In the specific case of the manuscripts that Eduard Toda donated to the AHCB, the letters that we focus on here reveal some of his areas of interest  through his searches and purchases on his visits to the antiquarian book markets of London and Paris. At least four areas of interest can be identified:

1) To contribute to the reconstruction of the collection of manuscripts that had once formed part of the old Barcelona Municipal Archive. For example, the 15th-century Rúbrica de privilegis (Ms 1G-22 and letters dated 8 and 11 August 1920), which was a subledger of the archive, an index of the city's privileges that were copied in the Llibres de Privilegis Verd (vol. II) and Vermell (vol. I and II) created to make it possible to find documents quickly in the aforementioned codices.
2) To locate manuscripts about historical events in Barcelona and Catalonia, or related to Barcelona. Examples would be the Dietari de las turbacions de Catalunya portat per. Jaume Çafont [...] starting in 1414 (Ms A-20 and letter dated 27 September 1920), written during the War of  Joan II, in a copy dating from the second half of the 17th century; and the Liber pronosticorum Juliani episcopi de futuro seculo (Ms B-116), written in the 7th century and dedicated by its author to the Bishop of Barcelona Idaci.
3) To bring back to Barcelona manuscripts from libraries that had historically been important in the city. Examples include the Cantoral (Ms B-329 and a letter dated 15 June 1925) from the library of the former convent of Santa Caterina in Barcelona, and the purchase of part of the library of the jurist Antonio de Siscar Miscel·lània de temes jurídics and Index verborum (Ms B-176, B-177 and B-178), that he gave to the AHCB.
4) Special mention should be made of the collection of documents by and about Barcelona explorer Domènec Badia i Leblich, also known as Ali Bei, amassed by Eduard Toda over the course of his life and donated in its entirety to the AHCB in the form of manuscript volumes (Ms B-160 to B-169 and a letter dated 14 January 1922), originals and copies.
 

MORE INFORMATION:

TRANSCRIPTIONS OF DE LETTERS BETWEEN Agustí DURAN and Eduard TODA

Transcription of the letter from Eduard Toda to Agustí Duran 8/8/1920

Transcription of the letter from Agustí Duran to Eduard Toda 11/8/1920

Transcription of the letter from Agustí Duran to Eduard Toda 27/9/1920 

Transcription of the letter from Eduard Toda to Mayor Antoni Martínez Domingo 14/1/1922 

Transcription of the letter from Eduard Toda to Agustí Duran 15/6/1925

Other letters in the archive exhibition:

Transcription of the letter from Eduard Toda to Agustí Duran 24/8/1920

Transcription of the note from Eduard Toda to Agustí Duran 26/4/1922

MANUSCRIPT COLLECTIONS of the Historical Archive of the City of Barcelona:

Manuscrits municipals

Manuscrits patrimonials (A, B i C)

ORAL TESTIMONIES about Agustí Duran i Sanpere and the AHCB

Col·lecció Agustí Duran Sanpere de l'AHCB 

REGIONAL ARCHIVE OF LA SEGARRA, Fons Agustí Duran i Sanpere

Bibliography and web sites

Dietari o Llibre de jornades (1411-1484) / de Jaume Safont ; a cura de Josep Maria Sans i Travé. Barcelona : Fundació Noguera, 1992. CII, 325 p. ; 24 cm.-- (Textos i documents ; 28).

DURAN i SANPERE, Agustí. Barcelona i la seva història. Barcelona: Curial, 1972-1975. 3 v. (Documents de cultura ; 2, 4, 7).

DURAN i SANPERE, Agustí. El Instituto Municipal de Historia de Barcelona a través de sus primeros cuarenta años (1917-1957). Butlletí de la Reial Acadèmia de Bones Lletres de Barcelona, vol. 27, p. 5-67.

FORT i COGUL, Eufemià. Eduard Toda, tal com l'he conegut. Barcelona: Publicacions de l'Abadia de Montserrat, 1975. (Biblioteca Abat Oliba; 6) 

GORT OLIVER, Jordina. Eduard Toda i Güell. Ideologia i escriptura (1855-1941). [tesi doctoral: Universitat de Barcelona, 2012].

MCEM: base de dades de manuscrits catalans de l’Edat Moderna [recurs en línia]

MUÑOZ PUJOL, Josep Maria. Agustí Duran i Sanpere: temps i memòria. Barcelona : Proa, 2004. (Perfils ; 46)

RIERA VIADER, Sebastià. Gènesi i primera etapa de l’Institut Municipal d’Història (1916-1989). Barcelona quaderns d’història, no. 1, p. 25-31.

Repertori de manuscrits catalans (1474-1620) / direcció: Eulàlia Duran. Barcelona: Institut d'Estudis Catalans, 1998. (Memòries de la Secció Històrico-Arqueològica ; 50, 55, 58).

Conté: 1. Barcelona: Arxiu Històric i Biblioteca de Catalunya / compilació a cura de M. del Mar Batlle ... [et al.].

RUEDA RAMÍREZ, Pedro José; Saumell Calaf, Dolors (2021). “Procedències dels impresos de la biblioteca del Castell Monestir d’Escornalbou: les marques de propietat de la col·lecció d’Eduard Toda”. BiD: textos universitaris de biblioteconomia i documentació, núm. 47 (desembre).

TODA, Eduard. Cartes d'Escornalbou i Poblet: un epistolari d'Eduard Toda a Agustí Duran i Sanpere (1922-1940) / [edició i introducció a cura de]: Gener Gonzalvo i Bou. Poblet; Tàrrega: l'autor: Arxiu Històric Comarcal de Cervera,2001.

Commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the death of Agustí Duran i Sanpere