Chronicle
Florentine Codex
Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España
Bernardino de Sahagún · 1577
Synopsis
Twelve books on the Nahua world before the Spanish conquest: the gods and their festivals, beliefs and moral philosophy, government, merchants and trades, medicine, plants and animals, designated by their names in Nahuatl. The twelfth book tells the conquest of Mexico from the point of view of the vanquished, the peoples of Tenochtitlan and Tlatelolco.
Context
The inquiries began in the mid-1540s, at Tepepulco and then Tlatelolco, among old men educated before the conquest, with the help of former pupils such as Antonio Valeriano. The Florence manuscript, dated 1577, sets out the Nahuatl text and its Spanish translation in parallel columns, with more than two thousand images painted by indigenous artists. A requisition ordered by Philip II sent the manuscripts to Spain; this one entered the Medici collection around 1588. The work was not printed until 1829, by Carlos María de Bustamante.
Who it is for
A summa in twelve books, to be consulted in parts; the images painted by the indigenous artists are a source in their own right.
Prizes and reception
The codex held in the Laurentian Library was inscribed in 2015 on UNESCO's Memory of the World Register; it has been digitised and available online since 2012.
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