Codex Mendoza: Aztec Manuscript

The Aztec painted manuscripts known as 'the Codex Mendoza' was prepared on the authority of Don Antonio de Mendoza, first Viceroy of New Spain, shortly after the Spanish conquest, for dispatch to the emperor, Charles V. The Codex was specially written by an Aztec painted book artist using the native pictographic system of writing. So that the Spanish monarch should be able to read it and form an idea of his strange dominions in the New World, a Spanish priest familiar with the language of the Aztecs, 'Nauatil', was asked to write a detailed explanation of the contents.

The Codex consists of 17 folio pages, arrange in 3 parts. The first is a copy of an ancient Mexican chronicle, which has not survived, of the 'history from year to year' of the lords of Tenochtitlan, together with a list of the towns they subdued. It covers the period from 1325 to 1521: in other words, from the foundation, on a most unompromising, water-logged site, of what was later to become the capital of the great Aztec empire, up to the final collapse of that empire at the hands of the European invaders.

Part II is a copy of the ancient document known as the 'Tribute Roll of Moctezuma,' now in the National Museum of Mexico.

Part II is the only strictly original part of the Codex, since it was written specially for the Viceroy by the Mexican 'tlacuilo,' and describes the 'life from year to year' of the Aztecs.