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Florentine Codex: Introduction and Indices: Introductory Book
Two of the world’s leading scholars of the Aztec language and culture have translated Sahagún’s monumental and encyclopedic study of native life in Mexico at the time of the Spanish Conquest. This immense undertaking is the first complete translation into any language of Sahagún’s Nahuatl text, and represents one of the most distinguished contributions in the fields of anthropology, ethnography, and linguistics.
Written between 1540 and 1585, the Florentine Codex (so named because the manuscript has been part of the Laurentian Library’s collections since at least 1791) is the most authoritative statement we have of the Aztecs’ lifeways and traditionsa rich and intimate yet panoramic view of a doomed people.
The Florentine Codex is divided by subject area into twelve books and includes over 2,000 illustrations drawn by Nahua artists in the sixteenth century.
This introduction to the Florentine Codex contains the original prologues to each volume written by Bernadino de Sahagun, which detail his intentions and personal experiences in compiling the Codex. Authors Dibble and Anderson dig into Sahagun’s past in “Sahagun’s Historia” and “Sahagun: Career and Character,” and discuss dating the Codex in “The Watermarks in the Florentine Codex.” This volume also includes indices of subject matter, persons and deities, and places for all twelve books.
Written between 1540 and 1585, the Florentine Codex (so named because the manuscript has been part of the Laurentian Library’s collections since at least 1791) is the most authoritative statement we have of the Aztecs’ lifeways and traditionsa rich and intimate yet panoramic view of a doomed people.
The Florentine Codex is divided by subject area into twelve books and includes over 2,000 illustrations drawn by Nahua artists in the sixteenth century.
This introduction to the Florentine Codex contains the original prologues to each volume written by Bernadino de Sahagun, which detail his intentions and personal experiences in compiling the Codex. Authors Dibble and Anderson dig into Sahagun’s past in “Sahagun’s Historia” and “Sahagun: Career and Character,” and discuss dating the Codex in “The Watermarks in the Florentine Codex.” This volume also includes indices of subject matter, persons and deities, and places for all twelve books.
160 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1982
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May 9, 2025
“It certainly seems,” wrote Father Bernardino de Sahagún, “in our times, in these lands [of Mexico] and with this people, that our Lord God has willed to restore to the Church that which the demon has robbed her of in England, Germany, France, Asia, and Palestine.”
I don’t take offense at having my Protestant forebears classed with Ottoman Turks. From Sahagún’s point of view, Islam’s armies were no less diabolical than the heretic Luther, the schismatic Henry VIII, or any of the sects poisoning Christendom. But there was one bright spot: the Valley of Mexico, where through the grace of God and Spanish steel a fresh harvest of souls entered the Kingdom of Heaven.
This context is vital for understanding Sahagún’s “General History of the Things of New Spain,” here translated from the fair copy known as the Florentine Codex. In our more secular age, many can’t understand the 16th-century Spanish conquest of Mexico as anything other than an act of racism, imperialism, and greed thinly masked by a piety that, surely, no one actually believed. Right?
Sahagún’s prologues, notes to the reader, and interpolations are illuminating for that question, collected here into a single volume. No doubt this frees the anthropology of subsequent volumes to stand on their own merits without Sahagún’s intrusive thoughts. But this also gives the translators an opportunity to introduce the author and his work for the phenomena they were.
In a series of essays, anthropologist Arthur J. O. Anderson and Professor Charles E. Dibble describe a man driven by his faith to a work centuries ahead of its time. Sahagún, as one of the first tranche of Franciscans sent to Mexico, received with enthusiasm his commission to document the religion, morality, government, economy, lifeways, flora, and fauna of Mexicans prior to the conquest.
He did this by consulting the old men who fought in the wars and remembered life before the Spaniards. Through questions and answers, and with the help of Indians trained in Latin, Sahagún compiled an unparalleled record of Aztec life. In two columns of Castilian Spanish and Nahuatl, and with illustrations by Mexican artists, Sahagún created a treasure trove of anthropological data for future historians.
Of course, Sahagún’s purpose was not academic. He was in the vanguard of monks and friars who began with high hopes for their Mexican flocks. He considered the Indians to be sons of Adam, as worthy as any Spaniard to receive the gospel as soon as their rites were banned, their books burned, their idols destroyed, and their temples razed. He intended his book to provide accurate information both to build bridges on common grace and to recognize and beat back the devil’s worship.
Sahagún’s comments in the “History” are a reminder that history doesn’t come in neat boxes. He considered the conquest a work of God, but paralleled it to Jerusalem’s judgment by the sword of Babylon — not a complimentary analogy for Spain! He believed it necessary to deconstruct the governing structure of the Valley as irredeemably idolatrous; but he recognized that native rulers had better understood their subjects and that Spanish rule had been a disaster for the Indians.
Sahagún symbolized the invasion of a foreign king and an alien faith, and yet seems genuinely to have respected and loved his charges, receiving their genuine love and respect in return. He even bucks the stereotype, often grounded in brutal truth, of the gold-hungry Spaniard. As Anderson and Dibble write, he left accounts of goldsmithing untranslated as “of little import for the faith or the virtues.”
Sahagún began his work in years of hope for a new dawn of faith. He suspended it in years of paranoia after the Inquisition debarked in Mexico. He finished it in years of disillusion given the persistence of old religion beneath a Christian mask, a native population dying out from recurrent plagues, and landed and mercantile interests eager to crowd Indians out of their rights and possessions. Few native clergy would ever take the cloth under Spanish rule, and the work of conversion would stumble along half done, and badly done, for centuries.
While it’s arguable that Sahagún’s work fell short of his hopes, there’s no denying he left his flock a precious gift: a voice. The “History” preserved in their own words, in their own language, in their own art, a record of who they were when they lived on their own terms. We hear them still because one man, to the extent his time and place and beliefs allowed, loved them enough to listen to what they had to say.
I don’t take offense at having my Protestant forebears classed with Ottoman Turks. From Sahagún’s point of view, Islam’s armies were no less diabolical than the heretic Luther, the schismatic Henry VIII, or any of the sects poisoning Christendom. But there was one bright spot: the Valley of Mexico, where through the grace of God and Spanish steel a fresh harvest of souls entered the Kingdom of Heaven.
This context is vital for understanding Sahagún’s “General History of the Things of New Spain,” here translated from the fair copy known as the Florentine Codex. In our more secular age, many can’t understand the 16th-century Spanish conquest of Mexico as anything other than an act of racism, imperialism, and greed thinly masked by a piety that, surely, no one actually believed. Right?
Sahagún’s prologues, notes to the reader, and interpolations are illuminating for that question, collected here into a single volume. No doubt this frees the anthropology of subsequent volumes to stand on their own merits without Sahagún’s intrusive thoughts. But this also gives the translators an opportunity to introduce the author and his work for the phenomena they were.
In a series of essays, anthropologist Arthur J. O. Anderson and Professor Charles E. Dibble describe a man driven by his faith to a work centuries ahead of its time. Sahagún, as one of the first tranche of Franciscans sent to Mexico, received with enthusiasm his commission to document the religion, morality, government, economy, lifeways, flora, and fauna of Mexicans prior to the conquest.
He did this by consulting the old men who fought in the wars and remembered life before the Spaniards. Through questions and answers, and with the help of Indians trained in Latin, Sahagún compiled an unparalleled record of Aztec life. In two columns of Castilian Spanish and Nahuatl, and with illustrations by Mexican artists, Sahagún created a treasure trove of anthropological data for future historians.
Of course, Sahagún’s purpose was not academic. He was in the vanguard of monks and friars who began with high hopes for their Mexican flocks. He considered the Indians to be sons of Adam, as worthy as any Spaniard to receive the gospel as soon as their rites were banned, their books burned, their idols destroyed, and their temples razed. He intended his book to provide accurate information both to build bridges on common grace and to recognize and beat back the devil’s worship.
Sahagún’s comments in the “History” are a reminder that history doesn’t come in neat boxes. He considered the conquest a work of God, but paralleled it to Jerusalem’s judgment by the sword of Babylon — not a complimentary analogy for Spain! He believed it necessary to deconstruct the governing structure of the Valley as irredeemably idolatrous; but he recognized that native rulers had better understood their subjects and that Spanish rule had been a disaster for the Indians.
Sahagún symbolized the invasion of a foreign king and an alien faith, and yet seems genuinely to have respected and loved his charges, receiving their genuine love and respect in return. He even bucks the stereotype, often grounded in brutal truth, of the gold-hungry Spaniard. As Anderson and Dibble write, he left accounts of goldsmithing untranslated as “of little import for the faith or the virtues.”
Sahagún began his work in years of hope for a new dawn of faith. He suspended it in years of paranoia after the Inquisition debarked in Mexico. He finished it in years of disillusion given the persistence of old religion beneath a Christian mask, a native population dying out from recurrent plagues, and landed and mercantile interests eager to crowd Indians out of their rights and possessions. Few native clergy would ever take the cloth under Spanish rule, and the work of conversion would stumble along half done, and badly done, for centuries.
While it’s arguable that Sahagún’s work fell short of his hopes, there’s no denying he left his flock a precious gift: a voice. The “History” preserved in their own words, in their own language, in their own art, a record of who they were when they lived on their own terms. We hear them still because one man, to the extent his time and place and beliefs allowed, loved them enough to listen to what they had to say.
November 17, 2011
I read this book constantly. The richest source of information about the Aztec culture, given by the Aztecs themselves. Yes, it was recorded by the Spanish friars, with the inevitable adjustments. Nothing can be done about that; still a breathtaking set of books.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews