Alicia Maria Houtrouw

Mesoamerican books inhabit multiple visual and bibliographical spaces that defy simple descriptions and straightforward categorization. Historical annals, divinatory calendars, speeches, poems, and songs informed the history, culture, and ritual life of pre- and post-contact societies. Since the sixteenth century, reproduction of Mesoamerican books has played a role in shaping ideas about race, ethnicity, and culture, as well as effects of settler colonialism in the Americas. Efforts to replicate Mesoamerican books for new audiences, however, have not always followed the same principle. Narratives of exploration, empire, and state formation have often appropriated the Mesoamerican book to fulfill political or religious agendas that have decontextualized the original use of pictorial and alphabetic manuscripts. The themes explored in this Dialogues propose new ways to think about analytical frameworks used to make sense of the content of Mesoamerican books in the eighteenth through twenty-first centuries. Who possessed the intellectual credentials to write about and copy pictorial records? What aspects of Mesoamerican books have made the replication process so complex and contested? How have naming, cataloging, and preservation of manuscripts and their fragments shaped our understanding of ideas of authenticity, originality, authorship, and knowledge? How can digital technologies reshape our experience with pictorial records? Contributors engage with these questions not only to historicize violence and displacement associated with Indigenous books after European contact but to highlight the way the publication of facsimiles helped and continues to help establish intellectual credentials, center historical narratives and popular ideas about culture, and generate funding for individuals and institutions.

The Digital Florentine Codex gives access to a singular manuscript created by Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún and a group of Nahua elders, authors, and artists. Written in parallel columns of Nahuatl and Spanish texts and hand painted with nearly 2,500 images, the encyclopedic codex is widely regarded as the most reliable source of information about Mexica culture, the Aztec Empire, and the conquest of Mexico. Upon completion in 1577 at the Imperial Colegio de la Santa Cruz in Tlatelolco (today Mexico City), the manuscript was sent to Europe where it entered the Medici family’s library in Florence—thus, the Florentine Codex. This digital edition unlocks the manuscript’s content by making the texts and images searchable.

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El Códice Florentino Digital da acceso a un manuscript singular creado por el fraile franciscano Bernardino de Sahagún y un grupo de principales, autores y artistas nahuas. Escrito en columnas paralelas de textos en náhuatl y español y pintado a mano con casi 2,500 imágenes, el códice enciclopédico es considerado la fuente de información más confiable sobre la cultura mexica, el imperio azteca, y la conquista de México. Una vez completado en 1577 en el Imperial Colegio de la Santa Cruz en Tlatelolco (hoy Ciudad de México), el manuscrito fue enviado a Europa, donde ingresó a la biblioteca de la familia Medici en Florencia—por eso el Códice florentino. Esta edición digital hace accesible el contenido del manuscrito a través de la búsqueda de textos e imágenes.

Celebrating the global launch of the Digital Florentine Codex (DFC), this virtual conference will gather experts involved in the creation of a digital edition of the 16th-century encyclopedic manuscript of Nahuatl culture and language. Register via Zoom: https://getty.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_1uF_RTAOR7yXZWwREJdDDA#/registration