Aztec codices ( nah, Mēxihcatl āmoxtli , sing. ''codex'') are Mesoamerican manuscripts made by the

pre-Columbian In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era spans from the original settlement of North and South America in the Upper Paleolithic period through European colonization, which began with Christopher Columbus's voyage of 1492. Usually, th ...

Aztec The Aztecs () were a Mesoamerican culture that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different Indigenous peoples of Mexico, ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those g ...

, and their

Nahuatl Nahuatl (; ), Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about Nahua peoples, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have smaller ...

-speaking descendants during the colonial period in

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

History

Before the start of the

Spanish colonization of the Americas Spain began colonizing the Americas under the Crown of Castile and was spearheaded by the Spanish . The Americas were invaded and incorporated into the Spanish Empire, with the exception of Brazil, British America, and some small regions ...

, the Mexica and their neighbors in and around the Valley of Mexico relied on painted books and records to document many aspects of their lives. Painted manuscripts contained information about their history, science, land tenure, tribute, and sacred rituals. According to the testimony of

Bernal Díaz del Castillo Bernal Díaz del Castillo ( 1492 – 3 February 1584) was a Spanish conquistador, who participated as a soldier in the conquest of the Aztec Empire under Hernán Cortés and late in his life wrote an account of the events. As an experienced ...

, Moctezuma had a library full of such books, known as ''amatl'', or ''amoxtli,'' kept by a ''calpixqui'' or nobleman in his palace, some of them dealing with tribute. After the conquest of Tenochtitlan, indigenous nations continued to produce painted manuscripts, and the Spaniards came to accept and rely on them as valid and potentially important records. The native tradition of pictorial documentation and expression continued strongly in the Valley of Mexico several generations after the arrival of Europeans. The latest examples of this tradition reach into the early seventeenth century.Boone, Elizabeth H. "Central Mexican Pictorials." In Davíd Carrasco (ed). ''The Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures''. : Oxford University Press, 2001.

Formats

Since the 19th century, the word ''

codex The codex (plural codices ) was the historical ancestor of the modern book. Instead of being composed of sheets of paper, it used sheets of vellum, papyrus, or other materials. The term ''codex'' is often used for ancient manuscript books, with ...

'' has been applied to all Mesoamerican pictorial manuscripts, regardless of format or date, despite the fact that pre-Hispanic Aztec manuscripts were (strictly speaking) non-codical in form. Aztec codices were usually made from long sheets of fig-bark paper (

amate Amate ( es, amate from nah, āmatl ) is a type of bark paper that has been manufactured in Mexico since the precontact times. It was used primarily to create codices. Amate paper was extensively produced and used for both communication, record ...

) or stretched deerskins sewn together to form long and narrow strips; others were painted on big cloths. Thus, usual formats include screenfold books, strips known as ''tiras'', rolls, and cloths, also known as lienzos. While no Aztec codex preserves its covers, from the example of Mixtec codices it is assumed that Aztec screenfold books had wooden covers, perhaps decorated with mosaics in turquoise, as the surviving wooden covers of Codex Vaticanus B suggests.

Writing and pictography

Aztec codices differ from European books in that most of their content is pictorial in nature. In regards to whether parts of these books can be considered as writing, current academics are divided in two schools: those endorsing grammatological perspectives, which consider these documents as a mixture of iconography and writing proper, and those with semasiographical perspectives, which consider them a system of graphic communication which admits the presence of glyphs denoting sounds (glottography). In any case, both schools coincide in the fact that most of the information in these manuscripts was transmitted by images, rather than by writing, which was restricted to names.

Style and regional schools

According to Donald Robertson, the first scholar to attempt a systematic classification of Aztec pictorial manuscripts, the pre-Conquest style of Mesoamerican pictorials in Central Mexico can be defined as being similar to that of the

Mixtec The Mixtecs (), or Mixtecos, are indigenous Mesoamerican peoples of Mexico inhabiting the region known as La Mixteca of Oaxaca and Puebla as well as La Montaña Region and Costa Chica Regions of the state of Guerrero. The Mixtec Culture wa ...

. This has historical reasons, for according to

Codex Xolotl The Codex Xolotl (also known as ''Codicé Xolotl'') is a postconquest cartographic Aztec codex, thought to have originated before 1542. It is annotated in Nahuatl and details the preconquest history of the Valley of Mexico, and Texcoco in partic ...

and historians like Ixtlilxochitl, the art of ''tlacuilolli'' or manuscript painting was introduced to the Tolteca-Chichimeca ancestors of the Tetzcocans by the Tlaoilolaques and Chimalpanecas, two

Toltec The Toltec culture () was a Pre-Columbian era, pre-Columbian Mesoamerican culture that ruled a state centered in Tula (Mesoamerican site), Tula, Hidalgo (state), Hidalgo, Mexico, during the Epiclassic and the early Post-Classic period of Mesoam ...

tribes from the lands of the Mixtecs. The Mixtec style would be defined by the usage of the native "frame line", which has the primary purpose of enclosing areas of color. as well as to qualify symbolically areas thus enclosed. Colour is usually applied within such linear boundaries, without any modeling or shading. Human forms can be divided into separable, component parts, while architectural forms are not realistic, but bound by conventions. Tridimensionality and perspective is absent. In contrast, post-Conquest codices present the use of European contour lines varying in width, and illusions of tridimensionality and perspective. Later on, Elizabeth Hill-Boone gave a more precise definition of the Aztec pictorial style, suggesting the existence of a particular Aztec style as a variant of the Mixteca-Puebla style, characterized by more naturalism and the use of particular calendrical glyphs that are slightly different from those of the Mixtec codices. Regarding local schools within the Aztec pictorial style, Robertson was the first to distinguish three of them: * School of Mexico Tenochtitlan: Based at the imperial capital of Tenochtitlan, it comprises two stages, an early one which would include the

Matrícula de Tributos The Matrícula de Tributos (English: Tribute roll) is a 16th-century central Mexican manuscript on amatl paper, listing the tributes paid by the various tributaries of the Aztec Empire. Each page of the 16-page manuscript represents the tribute ...

Plano en Papel de Maguey Plano may refer to: Native Americans * Plano cultures, the Late Paleo-Indian hunter-gatherer societies of the Great Plains of North America ** Plano point, the chipped stone tools of the Plano cultures Places in the United States * Plano, Califo ...

Codex Boturini Codex Boturini, also known as the ''Tira de la Peregrinación de los Mexica'' (Tale of the Mexica Migration), is an Aztec codex, which depicts the migration of the Azteca, later Mexica, people from Aztlán. Its date of manufacture is unknown, but ...

and the

Codex Borgia The Codex Borgia ( The Vatican, Bibl. Vat., Borg.mess.1), also known as ''Codex Borgianus'', ''Manuscrit de Veletri'' and ''Codex Yohualli Ehecatl'', is a pre-Columbian Middle American pictorial manuscript from Central Mexico featuring calendrica ...

; and a later one, which would comprise

Codex Mendoza The Codex Mendoza is an Aztec codex, believed to have been created around the year 1541. It contains a history of both the Aztec rulers and their conquests as well as a description of the daily life of pre-conquest Aztec society. The codex is wri ...

Codex Telleriano-Remensis The Codex Telleriano-Remensis, produced in sixteenth century Mexico on European paper, is one of the finest surviving examples of Aztec manuscript painting. Its Latin language, Latinized name comes from Charles-Maurice Le Tellier, Charles-Maurice ...

Codex Osuna Codex Osuna is an Aztec codex on European paper, with indigenous pictorials and alphabetic Nahuatl text from 1565. It has seven parts, with most being economic in content, particularly tribute, with one part having historical content. It was name ...

Codex Mexicanus The Codex Mexicanus is an early colonial Mexican pictorial manuscript. The Codex can be divided into several sections: #The saints, the European calendar and zodiac. #The Aztec calendar. #Accounts in the Aztec pictographic writing system. #A fa ...

and the

Magliabechiano Group Aztec codices ( nah, Mēxihcatl āmoxtli , sing. ''codex'') are Mesoamerican manuscripts made by the pre-Columbian Aztec, and their Nahuatl-speaking descendants during the colonial period in Mexico. History Before the start of the Sp ...

. * School of Texcoco: Based at the Texcoco polity (''altepetl''), this school comprises documents related to the court of

Nezahualcoyotl Nezahualcoyotl may refer to: * Nezahualcoyotl (tlatoani), the ruler of Texcoco * Ciudad Nezahualcóyotl, a city in the State of Mexico * Nezahualcóyotl metro station, in Mexico City * The Nezahualcóyotl Award, a literary prize in Mexico * Nezah ...

. Its foremost representativese are the

Mapa Quinatzin The Mapa Quinatzin is a 16th-century Nahua pictorial document, consisting of three sheets of amatl paper that depict the history of Acolhuacan. See also *Aztec codices *Codex Xolotl References * External links High Definition scans of the code ...

Mapa Tlotzin Mapa or MAPA may refer to: People * Alec Mapa (born 1965), American actor, comedian and writer * Dennis Mapa (born 1969), Filipino economist and statistician * Jao Mapa (born 1976), Filipino actor * Placido Mapa Jr. (born 1932), Filipino busines ...

, Codex en Cruz, the Boban Calendar Wheel, and the Relaciones Geográficas de Texcoco. * School of Tlatelolco: Based at the sister-city of Tenochtitlan, Tlatelolco, this school is associated with the Badianus herbal, the

Mapa de Santa Cruz The Santa Cruz Map (Also known as the Uppsala map) is the earliest known city map of Mexico City as the capital of New Spain. The map depicts the city’s layout with its buildings, streets, and waterways surrounded by the lakes of the basin of th ...

, the Codex of Tlatelolco and the

Florentine Codex The ''Florentine Codex'' is a 16th-century ethnographic research study in Mesoamerica by the Spanish Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún. Sahagún originally titled it: ''La Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva España'' (in English: ''The ...

Survival and preservation

A large number of prehispanic and colonial indigenous texts have been destroyed or lost over time. For example, when Hernan Cortés and his six hundred conquistadores landed on the Aztec land in 1519, they found that the Aztecs kept books both in temples and in libraries associated to palaces such as that of Moctezuma. For example, besides the testimony of Bernal Díaz quoted above, the conquistador Juan Cano describes some of the books to be found at the library of Moctezuma, dealing with religion, genealogies, government, and geography, lamenting their destruction at the hands of the Spaniards, for such books were essential for the government and policy of indigenous nations. Further loss was caused by Catholic priests, who destroyed many of the surviving manuscripts during the early colonial period, burning them because they considered them idolatric. The large extant body of manuscripts that did survive can now be found in museums, archives, and private collections. There has been considerable scholarly work on individual codices as well as the daunting task of classification and description. A major publication project by scholars of Mesoamerican ethnohistory was brought to fruition in the 1970s: volume 14 of the ''

Handbook of Middle American Indians ''Handbook of Middle American Indians'' (HMAI) is a sixteen-volume compendium on Mesoamerica, from the prehispanic to late twentieth century. Volumes on particular topics were published from the 1960s and 1970s under the general editorship of Rob ...

, Guide to Ethnohistorical Sources: Part Three'' is devoted to

Middle American pictorial manuscripts Middle or The Middle may refer to: * Centre (geometry), the point equally distant from the outer limits. Places * Middle (sheading), a subdivision of the Isle of Man * Middle Bay (disambiguation) * Middle Brook (disambiguation) * Middle Creek ( ...

, including numerous reproductions of single pages of important pictorials. This volume includes John B. Glass and Donald Robertson's survey and catalogue of Mesoamerican pictorials, comprising 434 entries, of which a considerable part proceed from the Valley of Mexico. Three Aztec codices have been considered as being possibly pre-Hispanic:

Codex Borbonicus The Codex Borbonicus is an Aztec codex written by Aztec priests shortly before or after the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire. It is named after the Palais Bourbon in France and kept at the Bibliothèque de l'Assemblée Nationale in Paris. The ...

, the

and the

. According to Robertson, no pre-Conquest examples of Aztec codices survived, for he considered the Codex Borbonicus and the Codex Boturini as displaying limited elements of European influence, such as the space apparently left to add Spanish glosses for calendric names in the Codex Borbonicus and some stylistic elements of trees in Codex Boturini. Similarly, the

seems to imitate European paper proportions, rather than native ones. However, Robertson's views, which equated Mixtec and Aztec style, have been contested by Elizabeth-Hill Boone, who considered a more naturalistic quality of the Aztec pictorial school. Thus, the chronological situation of these manuscripts is still disputed, with some scholars being in favour of them being prehispanic, and some against.

Classification

The types of information in manuscripts fall into several categories: calendrical, historical, genealogical, cartographic, economic/tribute, economic/census and cadastral, and economic/property plans. A census of 434 pictorial manuscripts of all of Mesoamerica gives information on the title, synonyms, location, history, publication status, regional classification, date, physical description, description of the work itself, a bibliographical essay, list of copies, and a bibliography. Indigenous texts known as Techialoyan manuscripts are written on native paper (''

amatl Amate ( es, amate from nah, āmatl ) is a type of bark paper that has been manufactured in Mexico since the precontact times. It was used primarily to create codices. Amate paper was extensively produced and used for both communication, record ...

'') are also surveyed. They follow a standard format, usually written in alphabetic Nahuatl with pictorial content concerning a meeting of a given indigenous pueblo's leadership and their marking out the boundaries of the municipality. A type of colonial-era pictorial religious texts are catechisms called Testerian manuscripts. They contain prayers and mnemonic devices. An interesting type of pictorial codex are ones deliberately falsified. John B. Glass published a catalog of such manuscripts that were published without the forgeries being known at the time. Another mixed alphabetic and pictorial source for Mesoamerican ethnohistory is the late sixteenth-century

Relaciones geográficas were a series of elaborate questionnaires distributed to the lands of King Philip II of Spain in the Viceroyalty of New Spain in North America. They were done so, upon his command, from 1579–1585. This was a direct response to the reforms imp ...

, with information on individual indigenous settlements in colonial Mexico, created on the orders of the Spanish crown. Each ''relación'' was ideally to include a pictorial of the town, usually done by an indigenous resident connected with town government. Although these manuscripts were created for Spanish administrative purposes, they contain important information about the history and geography of indigenous polities.

Important codices

Particularly important colonial-era codices that are published with scholarly English translations are

, the

, and the works by

Diego Durán Diego Durán (c. 1537 – 1588) was a Dominican friar best known for his authorship of one of the earliest Western books on the history and culture of the Aztecs, ''The History of the Indies of New Spain'', a book that was much criticised in hi ...

. Codex Mendoza is a mixed pictorial, alphabetic Spanish manuscript. Of supreme importance is the

, a project directed by Franciscan friar

Bernardino de Sahagún Bernardino de Sahagún, OFM (; – 5 February 1590) was a Franciscan friar, missionary priest and pioneering ethnographer who participated in the Catholic evangelization of colonial New Spain (now Mexico). Born in Sahagún, Spain, in 1499, he ...

, who drew on indigenous informants' knowledge of Aztec religion, social structure, natural history, and includes a history of the

Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire The Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, also known as the Conquest of Mexico or the Spanish-Aztec War (1519–21), was one of the primary events in the Spanish colonization of the Americas. There are multiple 16th-century narratives of the eve ...

from the Mexica viewpoint. The project resulted in twelve books, bound into three volumes, of bilingual Nahuatl/Spanish alphabetic text, with illustrations by native artists; the Nahuatl has been translated into English. Also important are the works of Dominican

, who drew on indigenous pictorials and living informants to create illustrated texts on history and religion. The colonial-era codices often contain Aztec pictograms or other pictorial elements. Some are written in alphabetic text in

Classical Nahuatl Classical Nahuatl (also known simply as Aztec or Nahuatl) is any of the variants of Nahuatl spoken in the Valley of Mexico and central Mexico as a ''lingua franca'' at the time of the 16th-century Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire. During the s ...

(in the

Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and the o ...

) or

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

, and occasionally

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

. Some are entirely in Nahuatl without pictorial content. Although there are very few surviving prehispanic codices, the ' (codex painter) tradition endured the transition to colonial culture; scholars now have access to a body of around 500 colonial-era codices. Some prose manuscripts in the indigenous tradition sometimes have pictorial content, such as the

, and the works of Durán, but others are entirely alphabetic in Spanish or Nahuatl.

Charles Gibson Charles deWolf Gibson (born March 9, 1943) is an American broadcast television anchor, journalist and podcaster. Gibson was a host of ''Good Morning America'' from 1987 to 1998 and again from 1999 to 2006, and the anchor of ''World News with Char ...

has written an overview of such manuscripts, and with John B. Glass compiled a census. They list 130 manuscripts for Central Mexico. A large section at the end has reproductions of pictorials, many from central Mexico.

List of Aztec codices

* Anales de Tlatelolco, an early colonial era set of annals written in Nahuatl, with no pictorial content. It contains information on Tlatelolco's participation in the

Spanish conquest The Spanish Empire ( es, link=no, Imperio español), also known as the Hispanic Monarchy ( es, link=no, Monarquía Hispánica) or the Catholic Monarchy ( es, link=no, Monarquía Católica) was a colonial empire governed by Spain and its predece ...

. * Badianus Herbal Manuscript is formally called Libellus de Medicinalibus Indorum Herbis (

for "Little Book of the Medicinal Herbs of the Indians") is a herbal manuscript, describing the medicinal properties of various plants used by the Aztecs. It was translated into Latin by

Juan Badiano Juan Badiano (1484-after 1552) was the translator of Libellus de Medicinalibus Indorum Herbis ca. 1552, from Nahuatl to Latin. The book was a compendium of 250 medicinal herbs used by the Aztecs. This compilation was originally done by Martin de la ...

, from a

original composed in the

Colegio de Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco The Colegio de Santa Cruz in Tlatelolco, Mexico City, is the first and oldest European school of higher learning in the Americas and the first major school of interpreters and translators in the New World. It was established by the Franciscans ...

in 1552 by Martín de la Cruz that is no longer extant. The ''Libellus'' is better known as the Badianus Manuscript, after the translator; the Codex de la Cruz-Badiano, after both the original author and translator; and the Codex Barberini, after

Cardinal Cardinal or The Cardinal may refer to: Animals * Cardinal (bird) or Cardinalidae, a family of North and South American birds **''Cardinalis'', genus of cardinal in the family Cardinalidae **''Cardinalis cardinalis'', or northern cardinal, the ...

Francesco Barberini, who had possession of the manuscript in the early 17th century. *

Chavero Codex of Huexotzingo The Chavero Codex of Huexotzingo of 1578 documents a judicial proceeding against officials who collected excessive taxes in Huexotzingo, located in today's Puebla, Mexico. There are 17 locations in the manuscript, which deals with tribute. These ...

Codex Azcatitlan The Codex Azcatitlan is an Aztec codex detailing the history of the Mexica and their migration journey from Aztlán to the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire. The exact date when the codex was produced is unknown, but scholars speculate it was ...

, a pictorial history of the Aztec empire, including images of the conquest *

Codex Aubin The Aubin Codex is an 81-leaf Aztec codex written in alphabetic Nahuatl on paper from Europe. Its textual and pictorial contents represent the history of the Aztec peoples who fled Aztlán, lived during the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire ...

is a pictorial history or

annal Annals ( la, annāles, from , "year") are a concise historical record in which events are arranged chronologically, year by year, although the term is also used loosely for any historical record. Scope The nature of the distinction between anna ...

of the Aztecs from their departure from Aztlán, through the

, to the early Spanish colonial period, ending in 1608. Consisting of 81 leaves, it is two independent manuscripts, now bound together. The opening pages of the first, an annals history, bear the date of 1576, leading to its informal title, Manuscrito de 1576 ("The Manuscript of 1576"), although its year entries run to 1608. Among other topics, Codex Aubin has a native description of the massacre at the temple in Tenochtitlan in 1520. The second part of this codex is a list of the native rulers of Tenochtitlan, up to 1607. It is held by the British Museum and a copy of its commentary is at the

Bibliothèque Nationale de France The Bibliothèque nationale de France (, 'National Library of France'; BnF) is the national library of France, located in Paris on two main sites known respectively as ''Richelieu'' and ''François-Mitterrand''. It is the national repository ...

. A copy of the original is held at the

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

library in the Robert Garrett Collection. The Aubin Codex is not to be confused with the similarly named Aubin

Tonalamatl The ''tonalamatl'' is a divinatory almanac used in central Mexico in the decades, and perhaps centuries, leading up to the Spanish conquest. The word itself is Nahuatl in origin, meaning "pages of days". The ''tonalamatl'' was structured arou ...

. *

is written by Aztec priests sometime after the

Spanish conquest of Mexico The Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, also known as the Conquest of Mexico or the Spanish-Aztec War (1519–21), was one of the primary events in the Spanish colonization of the Americas. There are multiple 16th-century narratives of the eve ...

. Like all pre-Columbian Aztec codices, it was originally pictorial in nature, although some Spanish descriptions were later added. It can be divided into three sections: An intricate ''

tonalamatl The ''tonalamatl'' is a divinatory almanac used in central Mexico in the decades, and perhaps centuries, leading up to the Spanish conquest. The word itself is Nahuatl in origin, meaning "pages of days". The ''tonalamatl'' was structured arou ...

'', or divinatory calendar; documentation of the Mesoamerican 52-year cycle, showing in order the dates of the first days of each of these 52 solar years; and a section of rituals and ceremonies, particularly those that end the 52-year cycle, when the " new fire" must be lit. Codex Bornobicus is held at the Library of the

National Assembly of France The National Assembly (french: link=no, italics=set, Assemblée nationale; ) is the lower house of the bicameral French Parliament under the Fifth Republic, the upper house being the Senate (). The National Assembly's legislators are known a ...

. *

– pre-Hispanic ritual codex, after which the group

Borgia Group The Borgia Group is the scholarly designation of number of mostly pre-Columbian documents from central Mexico. In 1830–1831, they were first published in their entirety as colored lithographs of copies made by an Italian artist, Agustino Aglio, ...

is named. The codex is itself named after Cardinal

Stefano Borgia Stefano Borgia (3 December 1731 – 1804) was an Italian Cardinal, theologian, antiquarian, and historian. Life Cardinal Borgia belonged to a well known family of Velletri, where he was born, and was a member of the collateral branch of House ...

, who owned it before it was acquired by the

Vatican Library The Vatican Apostolic Library ( la, Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana, it, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana), more commonly known as the Vatican Library or informally as the Vat, is the library of the Holy See, located in Vatican City. Formally es ...

. *

or Tira de la Peregrinación was painted by an unknown author sometime between 1530 and 1541, roughly a decade after the

. Pictorial in nature, it tells the story of the legendary Aztec journey from

Aztlán Aztlán (from nah, Astlan, ) is the ancestral home of the Aztec peoples. '' Astekah'' is the Nahuatl word for "people from Aztlan". Aztlan is mentioned in several ethnohistorical sources dating from the colonial period, and while they each cite ...

to the

Valley of Mexico The Valley of Mexico ( es, Valle de México) is a highlands plateau in central Mexico roughly coterminous with present-day Mexico City and the eastern half of the State of Mexico. Surrounded by mountains and volcanoes, the Valley of Mexico wa ...

. Rather than employing separate pages, the author used one long sheet of

, or fig bark, accordion-folded into 21½ pages. There is a rip in the middle of the 22nd page, and it is unclear whether the author intended the manuscript to end at that point or not. Unlike many other Aztec codices, the drawings are not colored, but rather merely outlined with black ink. Also known as "Tira de la Peregrinación" ("The Strip Showing the Travels"), it is named after one of its first European owners,

Lorenzo Boturini Benaduci Lorenzo Boturini Benaducci (also Botterini) 1698, Como, Sondrio, Italy – 1749, Madrid) was a historian, antiquary and ethnographer of New Spain, the Spanish Empire, Spanish Empire's colonial dominions in North America. Early life Born in It ...

(1702 – 1751). It is now held in the

Museo Nacional de Antropología The National Museum of Anthropology ( es, Museo Nacional de Antropología, MNA) is a national museum of Mexico. It is the largest and most visited museum in Mexico. Located in the area between Paseo de la Reforma and Mahatma Gandhi Street with ...

in Mexico City. *Codex Chimalpahin, a collection of writings attributed to colonial-era historian Chimalpahin concerning the history of various important city-states. * Codex Chimalpopoca * Codex Cospi, part of the

. *Codex Cozcatzin, a post-conquest, bound manuscript consisting of 18 sheets (36 pages) of European paper, dated 1572, although it was perhaps created later than this. Largely pictorial, it has short descriptions in Spanish and Nahuatl. The first section of the codex contains a list of land granted by

Itzcóatl Itzcoatl ( nci-IPA, Itzcōhuātl, it͡sˈkoːwaːt͡ɬ, "Obsidian Serpent", ) (1380–1440) was the fourth king of Tenochtitlan, and the founder of the Aztec Empire, ruling from 1427 to 1440. Under Itzcoatl the Mexica of Tenochtitlan threw off th ...

in 1439 and is part of a complaint against Diego Mendoza. Other pages list historical and genealogical information, focused on Tlatelolco and

Tenochtitlan , ; es, Tenochtitlan also known as Mexico-Tenochtitlan, ; es, México-Tenochtitlan was a large Mexican in what is now the historic center of Mexico City. The exact date of the founding of the city is unclear. The date 13 March 1325 was ...

. The final page consists of astronomical descriptions in Spanish. It is named for Don Juan Luis Cozcatzin, who appears in the codex as ''"alcalde ordinario de esta ciudad de México"'' ("ordinary mayor of this city of Mexico"). The codex is held by the

Bibliothèque Nationale A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vir ...

in Paris. * Codex en Cruz - a single piece of ''amatl'' paper, it is currently held by the

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

. *

Codex Fejérváry-Mayer The Codex Fejérváry-Mayer is an Aztec Codex of central Mexico. It is one of the rare pre-Hispanic manuscripts that have survived the Spanish conquest of Mexico. As a typical calendar codex '' tonalamatl'' dealing with the sacred Aztec calendar � ...

– pre-Hispanic calendar codex, part of the

. *Codex Ixtlilxochitl, an early 17th-century codex fragment detailing, among other subjects, a calendar of the annual festivals and rituals celebrated by the Aztec ''teocalli'' during the Mexican year. Each of the 18 months is represented by a god or historical character. Written in Spanish, the Codex Ixtlilxochitl has 50 pages comprising 27 separate sheets of European paper with 29 drawings. It was derived from the same source as the Codex Magliabechiano. It was named after

Fernando de Alva Cortés Ixtlilxochitl Fernando is a Spanish and Portuguese given name and a surname common in Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, Switzerland, former Spanish or Portuguese colonies in Latin America, Africa, the Philippines, India, and Sri Lanka. It is equivalent to the G ...

(between 1568 & 1578 - c. 1650), a member of the ruling family of Texcoco, and is held in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris and published in 1976. Page by page views of the manuscript are available online. *

Codex Laud The Codex Laud, or Laudianus, (catalogued as ''MS. Laud Misc. 678'', Bodleian Library in Oxford) is a sixteenth-century Mesoamerican codex named for William Laud, an English archbishop who was the former owner. It is from the Borgia Group, and i ...

, part of the

. *

Codex Magliabechiano The Codex Magliabechiano is a pictorial Aztec codex created during the mid-16th century, in the early Spanish colonial period. It is representative of a set of codices known collectively as the ''Magliabechiano Group (others in the group include t ...

was created during the mid-16th century, in the early Spanish colonial period. Based on an earlier unknown codex, the Codex Magliabechiano is primarily a religious document, depicting the 20 day-names of the '' tonalpohualli'', the 18 monthly feasts, the 52-year cycle, various deities, indigenous religious rites, costumes, and cosmological beliefs. The Codex Magliabechiano has 92 pages made from

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

a paper, with drawings and Spanish language text on both sides of each page. It is named after

Antonio Magliabechi Antonio di Marco Magliabechi (or Magliabecchi; 29 October 1633 - 4 July 1714) was an Italian librarian, scholar and bibliophile. Biography He was born at Florence, the son of a burgher named Marco Magliabechi, and Ginevra Baldorietta. Although ...

, a 17th-century Italian manuscript collector, and is held in the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale,

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

. *

is a pictorial document, with Spanish annotations and commentary, composed circa 1541. It is divided into three sections: a history of each Aztec ruler and their conquests; a list of the tribute paid by each tributary province; and a general description of daily Aztec life. It is held in the

Bodleian Library The Bodleian Library () is the main research library of the University of Oxford, and is one of the oldest libraries in Europe. It derives its name from its founder, Sir Thomas Bodley. With over 13 million printed items, it is the second- ...

at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

. *

is a mixed pictorial and Nahuatl alphabetic text detailing complaints of particular indigenous against colonial officials. *

Codex Porfirio Díaz The Codex Porfirio Díaz or ''Códice de Tututepetongo'' is a colonial Mesoamerican pictorial manuscript, consisting of a 10-page vellum screenfold. It is sometimes included in the Borgia Group The Borgia Group is the scholarly designation of nu ...

, sometimes considered part of the

*Codex Reese - a map of land claims in Tenotichlan discovered by the famed manuscript dealer William Reese. * Codex Santa Maria Asunción - Aztec census, similar to Codex Vergara; published in facsimile in 1997. *

- calendar, divinatory almanac and history of the Aztec people, published in facsimile. **

Codex Ríos ''Codex Ríos'' is an Italian translation and augmentation of a Spanish colonial-era manuscript, Codex Telleriano-Remensis, that is partially attributed to Pedro de los Ríos, a Dominican Order, Dominican Dominican friar, friar working in Oaxaca ...

- an Italian translation and augmentation of the

. * Codex of Tlatelolco is a pictorial codex, produced around 1560. * Codex Vaticanus B, part of the

*Codex Vergara - records the border lengths of Mesoamerican farms and calculates their areas. *

- a pictorial codex recounting the history of the

, and Texcoco in particular, from Xolotl's arrival in the Valley to the defeat of

Azcapotzalco Azcapotzalco ( nci, Āzcapōtzalco , , from ''wikt:azcapotzalli, āzcapōtzalli'' “anthill” + ''wikt:-co, -co'' “place”; literally, “In the place of the anthills”) is a Boroughs of Mexico City, borough (''demarcación territorial'') i ...

in 1428. *

Crónica Mexicayotl The ''Crónica Mexicayotl'' is a chronicle of the history of the Aztec Empire from the early Nahua migrations to the colonial period, which was written in the Nahuatl language around the 16th century. Its authorship is debated because the earliest ...

Hernando Alvarado Tezozomoc Hernando is a common Spanish given name, equivalent to Fernando and the English Ferdinand. It may refer to: Places ;Canada * Hernando Island, British Columbia ;United States * Hernando, Florida * Hernando County, Florida * Hernando, Mississippi ...

, prose manuscript in the native tradition. * Codex Florentine is a set of 12 books created under the supervision of Franciscan friar

between approximately 1540 and 1576. The Florentine Codex has been the major source of Aztec life in the years before the

Charles Dibble Charles E. Dibble (18 August 1909 – 30 November 2002) was an American academic, anthropologist, linguist, and scholar of pre-Columbian Mesoamerican cultures. A former Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the University of Utah, Dibble retir ...

and Arthur J.O. Anderson published English translations of the Nahuatl text of the twelve books in separate volumes, with redrawn illustrations. A full color, facsimile copy of the complete codex was published in three bound volumes in 1979. * Huexotzinco Codex,

Nahua The Nahuas () are a group of the indigenous people of Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. They comprise the largest indigenous group in Mexico and second largest in El Salvador. The Mexica (Aztecs) were of Nahua ethnicity, a ...

pictorials that are part of a 1531 lawsuit by Hernán Cortés against

Nuño de Guzmán Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán (c. 14901558) was a Spanish conquistador and colonial administrator in New Spain. He was the governor of the province of Pánuco from 1525 to 1533 and of Nueva Galicia from 1529 to 1534, and president of the first Royal ...

that the Huexotzincans joined. *

Mapa de Cuauhtinchan No. 2 {{italic title ''Mapa de Cuauhtinchan No. 2'' (''Cuauhtinchan Map #2'', also known in the literature by the abbreviation MC2) is one of five indigenous maps from the sixteenth century Valley of Puebla, that documents the history of the Chichimeca ...

- a post-conquest indigenous map, legitimizing the land rights of the Cuauhtinchantlacas. *

is a sixteenth-century mixed pictorial and alphabetic manuscript concerning the history of Texcoco. It has valuable information on the Texcocan legal system, depicting particular crimes and the specified punishments, including adultery and theft. One striking fact is that a judge was executed for hearing a case that concerned his own house. It has name glyphs for Nezahualcoyotal and his successor

Nezahualpilli Nezahualpilli (Nahuatl for "fasting prince"; 1464–1515, ) was king (''tlatoani'') of the Mesoamerican city-state of Texcoco, elected by the city's nobility after the death of his father, Nezahualcoyotl, in 1472. Nezahuapilli's mother was Azcal ...

. *Matrícula de Huexotzinco. Nahua pictorial census and alphabetic text, published in 1974. *

Oztoticpac Lands Map of Texcoco The Oztoticpac Lands Map of Texcoco is a pictorial Aztec codex on native paper (''amatl'') from Texcoco ca. 1540. It is held by the manuscript division of the Library of Congress, measuring and now on display in the Library of Congress as part o ...

, 1540 is a pictorial on native amatl paper from Texcoco ca. 1540 relative to the estate of Don Don Carlos Chichimecatecatl of Texcoco. * Codex Ramírez - a history by Juan de Tovar. *

Romances de los señores de Nueva España The ''Romances de los señores de Nueva España'' (Spanish language, Spanish for "Ballads of the Lords of New Spain") is a 16th-century compilation of Nahuatl songs or poems preserved in the Benson Latin American Collection at the University of Tex ...

- a collection of Nahuatl songs transcribed in the mid-16th century *

Santa Cruz Map The Santa Cruz Map (Also known as the Uppsala map) is the earliest known city map of Mexico City as the capital of New Spain. The map depicts the city’s layout with its buildings, streets, and waterways surrounded by the lakes of the basin of the ...

. Mid-sixteenth-century pictorial of the area around the central lake system.Sigvald Linné, ''El valle y la ciudad de México en 1550.'' Relación histórica fundada sobre un mapa geográfico, que se conserva en la biblioteca de la Universidad de Uppsala, Suecia. Stockholm: 1948.

References

External links

Bibliography of Mesoamerican Codices

* ttp://www.famsi.org/research/graz/ixtlilxochitl/index.html Page-by-page views of Codex Ixtlilxochitlbr>Complete scan of the Tovar Codex
from the

John Carter Brown Library The John Carter Brown Library is an independently funded research library of history and the humanities on the campus of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. The library's rare book, manuscript, and map collections encompass a variety of ...

{{Authority control

Codices The codex (plural codices ) was the historical ancestor of the modern book. Instead of being composed of sheets of paper, it used sheets of vellum, papyrus, or other materials. The term ''codex'' is often used for ancient manuscript books, with ...

Manuscripts by area A 16th century in the Aztec civilization 16th century in Mexico 16th century in New Spain Pictograms

History

Formats

Writing and pictography

Style and regional schools

Survival and preservation

Classification

Important codices

List of Aztec codices

See also

References

Further reading

External links