The culture of ancient Mexico is vividly documented: cosmology, mythology, and ethnography in a rare Italian manuscript
Codex Vaticanus A (3738)
Mexico — ca. 1580
Codex Vaticanus A (3738)
- Codice Vaticano A
- Codex Ríos
The Spanish brought manuscript production with them to the "New World" and the handwritten accounts of the explorers, administrators, and priests there were valuable sources of information. Codex Vaticanus A (3738) is divided into cosmological, mythological, and ethnographical sections but has a uniformity that is likely the result of it originating from the hand of one author, the Dominican Pedro de los Rios. It is actually the rough draft of another manuscript and as such is even more valuable because it offers insight into the drafting of the document and the mind of the author.
Codex Vaticanus A (3738)
This manuscript was created between 1570 and 1589, either in the highlands of Mexico or it may have already existed in Italy, similar to the case of the Paris Codex Telleriano Remensis; a copy of a joint original draft which Robert H. Barlow named the “Codex Huitzilopochtli”. While the Codex Telleriano Remensis clearly is written by several writers, the Codex Vaticanus 3738 contains only one style, however divided into cosmological, mythological, and ethnographical sections. The hypothetically collected manuscript served as a draft for the final work and it is this fact without a doubt which accounts for the great value of this manuscript. The seemingly well-known author, the Dominican Pedro de los Rios (who the Codex Rios is named after) is responsible for the Italian text from the original 101 folio European papers of the comprehensive manuscript Vaticanus A.
- Alternative Titles
- Codice Vaticano A
Codex Ríos - Size / Format
- 206 pages / 48.5 × 37.0 cm
- Origin
- Mexico
- Date
- ca. 1580
- Epochs
- Style
- Language
- Artist / School
- Scribe: Pedro de los Rios (d. 1547)
Codex Vaticanus A (3738) Facsimile
Codex Vaticanus A (3738) Facsimile
- Publisher
- Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt (ADEVA) – Graz, 1979
- Binding
- Half leather binding.
- Commentary
-
1 volume
Languages: English, French, German, Spanish - More Information
- Reproduction of the entire original document as detailed as possible (scope, format, colors). The binding may not correspond to the original or current document binding. In order to reduce costs the reproduced facsimile had to be reduced in size from that of the original manuscript format ( ca. 46.5 x 29.5 – folios are not all the same size) and therefore because the facsimile is not in accordance to the original down to the smallest detail, it cannot by definition, serve as a pre-Columbian document.
He believed in providence and a divine mission: the "political-religious testament", written by Christopher Columbus
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Painted and folded sheets with a total length of almost 11 meters: a richly illuminated testimony to the seemingly strange world of ancient Mexico before the arrival of the Conquistadores
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