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, ...

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 ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl ...

, 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 small ...

-speaking descendants during the colonial period in

Mexico Mexico (Spanish language, Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a List of sovereign states, country in the southern portion of North America. It is borders of Mexico, bordered to the north by the United States; to the so ...

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 experience ...

, 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) 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 Cult ...

. This has historical reasons, for according to Codex Xolotl 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 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, Plano en Papel de Maguey, Codex Boturini and the Codex Borgia; 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,

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 nam ...

, Codex Mexicanus and the Magliabechiano Group. * 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 * Neza ...

. 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 codex ...

, Mapa Tlotzin, Codex Xolotl,

Codex en Cruz The Codex en Cruz is a pictogram, pictorial Aztec codices, Aztec codex consisting of a single piece of ''amatl'' paper. It records historical events, such as the Order of succession, succession of rulers, wars, and famines, of the 15th and 16th cent ...

, the

Boban Calendar Wheel Boban ( sr-cyr, Бобан) is a Croatian family name and Serbian, Montenegrin and Macedonian masculine given name. Among Serbs, Montenegrins and Macedonians, Boban might be used as a nickname form of the name "Slobodan" or "Bogdan". Most Croats n ...

, 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 Codex of Tlatelolco and the Florentine Codex.

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, Guide to Ethnohistorical Sources: Part Three'' is devoted to Middle American pictorial manuscripts, 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. T ...

, the Matrícula de Tributos and the Codex Boturini. 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 Matrícula de Tributos 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'') 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 impos ...

, 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 Florentine Codex, and the works by Diego Durán. Codex Mendoza is a mixed pictorial, alphabetic Spanish manuscript. Of supreme importance is the Florentine Codex, a project directed by Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún, 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 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 Diego Durán, 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 ...

(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 ...

) or Spanish, and occasionally

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, 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 ...

. 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 Florentine Codex,

, and the works of Durán, but others are entirely alphabetic in Spanish or Nahuatl. Charles Gibson 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 The ''Anales de Tlatelolco'' (''Annals of Tlatelolco'') is a codex manuscript written in Nahuatl, using Latin characters, by anonymous Aztec authors. The text has no pictorial content. Although there is an assertion that the text was a copy of one ...

, 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. * 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 Evidence-based medicine (EBM) is "the conscientious, explicit and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients". The aim of EBM is to integrate the experience of the clinician, the values of t ...

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 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, t ...

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

* Codex Azcatitlan, a pictorial history of the Aztec empire, including images of the conquest * Codex Aubin is a pictorial history or annal of the Aztecs from their departure from Aztlán, through the Spanish conquest, 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 research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

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

is written by Aztec priests sometime after the Spanish conquest of Mexico. 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'', 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 know ...

. * Codex Borgia – pre-Hispanic ritual codex, after which the group Borgia Group is named. The codex is itself named after Cardinal Stefano Borgia, 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 ...

. * Codex Boturini or Tira de la Peregrinación was painted by an unknown author sometime between 1530 and 1541, roughly a decade after the Spanish conquest of Mexico. 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 w ...

. Rather than employing separate pages, the author used one long sheet of amatl, 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 (1702 – 1751). It is now held in the Museo Nacional de Antropología in Mexico City. *Codex Chimalpahin, a collection of writings attributed to colonial-era historian

Chimalpahin Domingo Francisco de San Antón Muñón Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzin (1579, Amecameca, Chalco—1660, Mexico City), usually referred to simply as Chimalpahin or Chimalpain, was a Nahua annalist from Chalco. His Nahuatl names () mean "Runs Swi ...

concerning the history of various important city-states. *

Codex Chimalpopoca ''Codex Chimalpopoca'' or ''Códice Chimalpopoca'' is a postconquest cartographic Aztec codex which is officially listed as being in the collection of the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia located in Mexico City under "Collección An ...

Codex Cospi The Codex Cospi (or Codex Bologna) is a pre-Columbian Mesoamerican pictorial manuscript, included in the Borgia Group. It is currently located in the library of the University of Bologna. Like other manuscripts in the Codex Borgia, the Codex C ...

, part of the Borgia Group. *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 of ...

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

- a single piece of ''amatl'' paper, it is currently held by the Bibliothèque Nationale in

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. Si ...

. * Codex Fejérváry-Mayer – pre-Hispanic calendar codex, part of the Borgia Group. *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, part of the Borgia Group. *

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

. *

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 sec ...

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 ...

. * Codex Mexicanus *

is a mixed pictorial and Nahuatl alphabetic text detailing complaints of particular indigenous against colonial officials. * Codex Porfirio Díaz, sometimes considered part of the Borgia Group *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. * Codex Telleriano-Remensis - 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 friar working in Oaxaca and Puebla between 1547 and 1562 ...

- an Italian translation and augmentation of the Codex Telleriano-Remensis. * Codex of Tlatelolco is a pictorial codex, produced around 1560. *

Codex Vaticanus B Codex Vaticanus B, ( The Vatican, Bibl. Vat., Vat.Lat.773) also known as ''Codex Vaticanus 3773'', ''Codice Vaticano Rituale'', and ''Códice Fábrega'', is a pre-Columbian Middle American pictorial manuscript, probably from the Puebla part of th ...

, part of the Borgia Group *Codex Vergara - records the border lengths of Mesoamerican farms and calculates their areas. * Codex Xolotl - 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 '' āzcapōtzalli'' “anthill” + '' -co'' “place”; literally, “In the place of the anthills”) is a borough (''demarcación territorial'') in Mexico City. Azcapotzalco is in the northwestern ...

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, prose manuscript in the native tradition. * Codex Florentine is a set of 12 books created under the supervision of Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún between approximately 1540 and 1576. The Florentine Codex has been the major source of Aztec life in the years before the Spanish conquest. Charles Dibble 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 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 Ro ...

that the Huexotzincans joined. * Mapa de Cuauhtinchan No. 2 - 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 ...

, 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 - a collection of Nahuatl songs transcribed in the mid-16th century * Santa Cruz Map. 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 {{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