The Codex Cospi (or Codex Bologna) is a

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 ...

Mesoamerican pictorial manuscript, included in the

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, ...

. It is currently located in the library of the

University of Bologna The University of Bologna ( it, Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna, UNIBO) is a public research university in Bologna, Italy. Founded in 1088 by an organised guild of students (''studiorum''), it is the oldest university in continuo ...

. Like other manuscripts in 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 ...

, the Codex Cospi is believed to derive from the Puebla-Tlaxcala region but the exact origin of the manuscript is unknown. The contents of the manuscript are of a religious and divinatory character including depictions of the Venus god, Tlahuizcalpanteuhtli, and of Gods, or priests dressed as gods, present offerings in front of temples. The back side pictorially describes rituals that involve counted bundles in front of deities. The rituals are intended for obtaining good luck and protection in several activities. Similar scenes are found in the codices '' Fejérváry-Mayer'' and '' Laud''.

Eduard Seler Eduard Georg Seler (December 5, 1849 – November 23, 1922) was a prominent German anthropologist, ethnohistorian, linguist, epigrapher, academic and Americanist scholar, who made extensive contributions in these fields towards the study of ...

remarked, the depictions in the Codex Cospi resemble those in "comic books" : this may characterize the political situation (regarded as farcical and comical) wherein Tlaxcallan, although completely encircled by the Aztec empire, was deliberately not incorporated into it in order to exemplify the magnanimity of the Aztec rulers. The Codex Cospi has many close specific resemblances in content to Codex Borgia, most notably both codices' beginning with a sequence of 104 scenes (Cospi, pp. 1–8 = Borgia, pp. 1–8). Another resemblance is the Codex Cospi god having "two knives as a head":Aguilera, 1990, p.54b; depicted ''ibid.'', p.52 this is equivalent to double-knife-headed god central to Codex Borgia, p. 32.

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References

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External links

Digitized version of the original Codex Cospi (Library of the University of Bologna)
Cospi {{mesoamerica-stub Middle American pictorial manuscripts