[History & Culture] [San Francisco] Andres de Hispelo
Signature of Saint Andres de Hispelo
Autograph signature "B. Andres de Hispelo / C." on laid paper, within an elaborately engraved sanguine cartouche, depicting flags, canons, drums, weapons, shield and a crown, the printer identified lower right "Calle de la Profesa." Mounted to a larger album sheet, itself signed on the verso by the American mining engineer, Gardner F. Williams (1842 - 1922), removed from an album of autograph assembled in San Francisco, ca 1880 (but including earlier examples laid in, such as the present one).Hispelo is described as "the Saint that today our Order celebrates, San Andres del Agua, for other name Hispelo...the Saint, as Patron of the water [who] will make it rain," in the 1769 Diary of Junipero Serra (1713 - 1784), namesake of many California streets, the Spanish Franciscan friar who founded a mission in Baja California and the first nine of 21 Spanish missions in California from San Diego to San Francisco. We have been unable to find any further mention of Saint Andres de Hispelo but offer this signature as an obscure piece of CA history, given that this comes from a San Francisco collection and Hispelo is mentioned in the diary of an important early CA settler. (10366)
Signature Culture, Ethnicity & Gender