Codex Nuttall

be of no serious value to students. On the other hand they clearly establish one significant point, namely, that their writer was convinced that the Codex was in the Nahuatl language Nahuatl was the language of the Aztec Empire. While the annotator believed this was an Aztec document, modern scholarship identifies the Codex Nuttall as a Mixtec manuscript from the Oaxaca region..

RESEMBLANCE OF THE CODEX TO THAT PRESERVED IN THE IMPERIAL LIBRARY AT VIENNA

Anyone acquainted with the beautiful Codex preserved in the Imperial Library at Vienna Now known as the Codex Vindobonensis Mexicanus I. cannot but recognize that it is the handiwork of the same artist who painted the present Codex. A close comparative study of the drawing and the texts of both Codices has convinced me that, although the pages of the Vienna Codex are of a larger size, the two manuscripts actually complement each other. In both Codices the year 1 Reed original: "I Acatl" accompanied by the day-sign 1 Crocodile original: "I Cipactli" is conspicuous, and occurs more frequently than any other date. What is more, a number of remarkable conventional signs and hieroglyphs occur in both codices and in these only. They constitute a convincing proof that both manuscripts deal with contemporaneous facts and circumstances, besides being the work of the same artist.

A research into the past history of these sister-Codices seems, moreover, to yield indications that shortly after the Conquest both manuscripts were in Florence. The Latin inscription on the Vienna Codex states that The following is a translation of the Latin inscription found on the Vienna manuscript. “it had been sent by King Emmanuel of Portugal to Pope Clement VII, and since has been in the possession of the Cardinals Hippolytus de’ Medici and Capuanus.” In his Views of the Cordilleras original: "Vues des Cordillères", a seminal work by the explorer Alexander von Humboldt., Humboldt has pointed out the apparent anachronism of the above inscription, noting that King Emmanuel of Portugal died in 1521 and that Clement VII only ascended the papal chair in 1523. Previously to his election, however, Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici, subsequently Clement VII, was the most prominent personage at the papal court, being the nephew of Lorenzo the Magnificent, and the cousin and chief adviser of Pope Leo X. Like other members of the Medici family, Cardinal Giulio was noted as a collector of rarities, and, all things considered, there is no reason why King Emmanuel of Portugal should not have sent the Codex, before his death, in 1521, to the most influential member of the princely Medici, who, a couple of years afterwards, became Clement VII. The apparent anachronism appears to be attributable to the careless, though perfectly natural and explicable allusion to Giulio de’ Medici by the papal title by which he is known to history.

The inscription records that the Codex subsequently passed into the hands of another member of the Medici family. The Medicean Archives, which I consulted, furnish interesting evidence which I intend to publish separately, proving not only that constant correspondence was kept up by means of ambassadors between the courts of Spain, Portugal and Florence, but also that a special interest in all relating to the New World was taken by several Medicean princes.

In addition to the valuable Spanish-Mexican manuscripts of the Mediceo-Laurentian Library and the National Library original: "Biblioteca Nazionale", which have already been alluded to, the beautiful mitre of feather mosaic made for a Medicean prelate and preserved to this day in the Pitti Palace,