Library and archive
The library is on the first floor of the north wing. In one of the rooms, the monks composed music and copied scores.
The library is on the first floor of the north wing of the monastery, and it has different rooms. These rooms receive abundant light through big windows which are very low and reach the pavement.
The first room would be used for reading. This room is refurbished by the owner family in the 19th century, with the current vault and decorations, adding a fake chimney as an ornament. The decorations of the wall are from a more recent period.
The ceiling of the other rooms, adjacent to the first room, is the original ceiling from the 16th or 17th century; the rooms are the original ones of the first period of the monastery.
The following hall would be used to store books. Another room would be used to compose music and another room could be destined to copy scores to submit them to other Hieronymite monasteries, as all music sung in the other monasteries of this order were composed at the monastery of Sant Jeroni de Cotalba.
In 1709, the library is moved to the main or bell tower to be protected from the destruction of the troops of Philip V of Spain, in the War of Spanish Succession.
With the confiscation, the government took the books from the library and allocated them at provincial libraries, museums, academies and other facilities of public instruction.
Monastery archive
The archive of the monastery is located in front of the library. The ceiling has the original wooden coffering of the 16th century approximately. The pavement is preserved with flooring from different periods of the monastery, as, after the confiscation, part of the original floor disappeared, and it was replaced with tiles of more recent periods from other rooms of the monastery.
There is a walled entry on the wall to the left, which connected the archive with the current hall of arms.
The archive stored different types of documentation: letters, chapter acts, record of the assets of the monastery, incomes, list of expenses, etc.
The archive may have been moved approximately in 1709 to the prior’s tower, at the same time as the library was moved to the main tower, to protect it from the invasion of the troops of Philip V.
With the confiscation, some of the files of the monastery of Sant Jeroni de Cotalba were taken to the National Historical Archive of Madrid and other files were taken to the Archive of the Kingdom of Valencia.
