The book that not even a mayor could get out of Barcelona's archives

BarcelonaThe Green Book of Barcelona is a 14th-century handwritten codex that compiles the privileges that governed municipal life in the Catalan capital in the Middle Ages. It has great symbolic value, but also aesthetic value due to the miniatures and headers scattered throughout its pages. The entire medieval society is represented in four volumes. Written in Latin and Catalan, it is kept locked in the Municipal Historical Archive of Barcelona and, in the last 50 years, has only been released twice: in 1979, when Narcís Serra was sworn in as the first democratic mayor after the dictatorship, and in 1999, at the exhibition Gothic Barcelona which was held at the Barcelona History Museum. Not even Xavier Trias managed to retrieve it from the archive in 2011 when he was sworn in as mayor and asked for it. For the first time this century, and for just one week, it will be shown in the exhibition. Barcelona: The Archive that we are, which can be seen from September 19 to November 23 at the Museu d'Història de Barcelona.

It's one of the hundred documents that recount seven centuries of the city's history: from April 1249, when James I authorized the inhabitants of Barcelona to govern themselves autonomously, to the present day. "It's past, present, and future, because the archive keeps receiving documents. Starting in the 20th century, the archive began receiving private donations, and that's also meant there are now multiple voices," says the author.historian and museologist Daniel Venteo, who curated the exhibition of the municipal archivesIn addition, future projects are also discussed in the Tinell Room. The architectural project was presented in May 2018. to convert warehouse number 8 of the former Can Batlló textile factory into the headquarters of the 21 municipal archives currently spread throughout the city. After a period of hiatus, the final project is now being drawn up, which will make the dream of unifying archives and, ultimately, having a large exhibition hall of its own a reality.

An archive practically unique in Europe

"We have 50 linear kilometers of documentation; few cities have this documentary heritage that has been maintained consistently, with some setbacks, over all these centuries," says Ana Pazos, chief archivist at Barcelona City Council. "One of the reasons for this exhibition is to showcase our archive on the occasion of the International Congress of Archives, which will be held in Barcelona in October and will bring together archivists from around the world. It is the first time this congress has been held in Spain," Pazos adds. Furthermore, on October 9, Ramon Alberch, who was Barcelona's chief archivist from 1989 to 2004, will present a book on the history of the archives.

Among many other documents is a copy of the first privilege of self-government from 1249. The original was lost, but fortunately, municipal notary Esteve Gilabert made a copy in the 17th century. The exhibition features many other examples of self-government, both from its peak and its darkest periods, such as a copy of the Nueva Planta Decree of 1714. There is the first municipal act of the new Republican municipal corporation from April 1931, but also the purge file of April 1939 by the Franco regime.

Barcelona grew exponentially, especially from the end of the 19th century. The city has been reinventing itself, and the exhibition shows maps of what it was like, but also projects of what it would become. Some were attempted, others were half-finished, and some were forgotten. There is a drawing from 1389 showing the late medieval city, the ambitious Cerdà Plan, the plan to convert the Bourbon military citadel into a new central park by Josep Fontserè from 1873; The Rambla of 1807... On one of the walls is displayed the general reform project for Ciutat Vella approved in January 1881, which involved the construction of the avenues of the Cathedral, Cambó and Via Laietana and others that were never built. The other side of the coin is in a drawer: Modesto Urgell drew some of the buildings and squares, such as the Placeta de Basea or the Calle de las Donzelles, which were wiped off the map when the Via Laietana was built. There is a map of the Civil War bombings and the drawings that the children made about how they lived then. One of the lesser-known maps was made during the Franco regime and shows the shanty towns: a red cross marks the "most dangerous" areas.

Throughout the exhibition, there are photographs from different historical moments. In some cases, the complementation with the documentation is practically perfect. There is a photograph by Francesc Ballell of one of the pavilions built during the typhoid fever epidemic of 1914. Below, the documentation of the economic management preserves a piece of the quilts that can be seen in the image. The documents explain great demands of the 20th century, such as that of a secular Catalan school, or a marriage register that some official reused to convert it into a divorce register. It contains (unseen) the names of the first divorcees in Barcelona after the first, short-lived legislation that allowed it in 1931. One of the most voluminous documents dates back to 1401. It is the register of the first public bank in Barcelona and the oldest in the entire continent, which disappeared in 1867. It even preserves the original key.