01-19-2014, 12:00 AM
from wikipedia
The Florentine Codex is a 16th-century ethnographic research project in Mesoamerica by Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún. Bernardino originally titled it: La Historia Universal de las Cosas de Nueva España (in English: the Universal History of the Things of New Spain).[1] After a translation mistake it was given the name "Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España". The best-preserved manuscript is commonly referred to as "The Florentine Codex" after the Italian town hosting the archive library where it is held, the Laurentian Library in Florence, Italy. In partnership with Aztec men who were formerly his students, Bernardino conducted research, organized evidence, wrote and edited his findings starting in 1545 up until his death in 1590. It consists of 2,400 pages organized into twelve books with over 2,000 illustrations drawn by native artists providing vivid images of this era. It documents the culture, religious cosmology (worldview) and ritual practices, society, economics, and natural history of the Aztec people. One scholar described The Florentine Codex as “one of the most remarkable accounts of a non-Western culture ever composed.”[2] Charles E. Dibble and Arthur J. O. Anderson were the first to translate the Codex from Nahuatl to English, in a project that took 30 years to complete.[3] As of November 1, 2012, the World Digital Library offers high resolution scans of all volumes at The Florentine Codex.[4]
Bernardino’s motivations for researchBernardino’s primary motivation was to evangelize indigenous Mesoamerican peoples, and his writings were devoted to this end. He described this work as an explanation of the “divine, or rather idolatrous, human, and natural things of New Spain.”[5] He compared its body of knowledge to that needed by a physician to cure the “patient” suffering from idolatry. He had three overarching goals for his research:
To describe and explain ancient Indigenous religion, beliefs, practices, deities. This was to help friars and others understand this “idolatrous” religion and to evangelize the Aztecs.To create a vocabulary of the Aztec language, Nahuatl. This provides more than definitions from a dictionary, but rather an explanation of their cultural origins, with pictures. This was to help friars and others learn Nahuatl, but also to understand the cultural context of the language.To record and document the great cultural inheritance of the Indigenous peoples of New Spain.[6]Bernardino conducted research for several decades, edited and revised it over several decades, created several versions of a 2,400-page manuscript, and addressed a cluster of religious, cultural and nature themes.[7] Copies of it were sent back to the royal court of Spain and to the Vatican in the late 16th century to explain Aztec culture. The document was essentially lost for about two centuries, until a scholar rediscovered it in the Laurentian Library (Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana) an archive library in Florence, Italy. A scholarly community of historians, anthropologists, art historians, and linguists has been actively investigating Bernardino’s work, its subtleties and mysteries, for more than 200 years.[8]
Format and structure[edit]
An illustration of the "One Flower" ceremony, from the 16th century Florentine Codex. The two drums are the teponaztli (foreground) and the huehuetl (background).
The Florentine Codex is a complex document, assembled, edited, and appended over decades. Bernardino’s goals of orientating fellow missionaries to Aztec culture, providing a rich Nahuatl vocabulary, and recording the indigenous cultural heritage at times compete with each other within it. The manuscript pages are generally of two columns, with Nahuatl, written first, on the right and a Spanish translation on the left. There are diverse voices, views, and opinions in these 2,400 pages, and the result is a document which at times can appear contradictory.[8]
Scholars have proposed several classical and medieval worldbook authors that inspired Bernardino, such as Aristotle, Pliny, Isidore of Seville, and Bartholomew the Englishman. These shaped the late medieval approach to the organization of knowledge.[9] The twelve books of the Florentine Codex are organized in the following way:
The codex is composed of the following twelve books:[11]
The Gods. Deals with gods worshiped by the natives of this land, which is New Spain.The Ceremonies. Deals with holidays and sacrifices with which these natives honored their gods in times of infidelity.The Origin of the Gods. About the creation of the gods.The Soothsayers. About Indian judiciary astrology or omens and fortune-telling arts.The Omens. Deals with foretelling these natives made from birds, animals, and insects in order to foretell the future.Rhetoric and Moral Philosophy. About prayers to their gods, rhetoric, moral philosophy, and theology in the same context.The Sun, Moon and Stars, and the Binding of the Years. Deals with the sun, the moon, the stars, and the jubilee year.Kings and Lords. About kings and lords, and the way they held their elections and governed their reigns.The Merchants. About merchants, and officials for gold, precious stones and feathers.The People. About general history: it explains vices and virtues, spiritual as well as bodily, of all manner of persons.Earthly Things. About properties of animals, birds, fish, trees, herbs, flowers, metals, and stones, and about colors.The Conquest. About the conquest of New Spain, which is Mexico City.
(books available in print)
for those interested in seeing original manuscripts and pictures..the whole thing i believe can be viewed here...
http://www.wdl.org/en/item/10096/view/1/30/
The Florentine Codex is a 16th-century ethnographic research project in Mesoamerica by Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún. Bernardino originally titled it: La Historia Universal de las Cosas de Nueva España (in English: the Universal History of the Things of New Spain).[1] After a translation mistake it was given the name "Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España". The best-preserved manuscript is commonly referred to as "The Florentine Codex" after the Italian town hosting the archive library where it is held, the Laurentian Library in Florence, Italy. In partnership with Aztec men who were formerly his students, Bernardino conducted research, organized evidence, wrote and edited his findings starting in 1545 up until his death in 1590. It consists of 2,400 pages organized into twelve books with over 2,000 illustrations drawn by native artists providing vivid images of this era. It documents the culture, religious cosmology (worldview) and ritual practices, society, economics, and natural history of the Aztec people. One scholar described The Florentine Codex as “one of the most remarkable accounts of a non-Western culture ever composed.”[2] Charles E. Dibble and Arthur J. O. Anderson were the first to translate the Codex from Nahuatl to English, in a project that took 30 years to complete.[3] As of November 1, 2012, the World Digital Library offers high resolution scans of all volumes at The Florentine Codex.[4]
Bernardino’s motivations for researchBernardino’s primary motivation was to evangelize indigenous Mesoamerican peoples, and his writings were devoted to this end. He described this work as an explanation of the “divine, or rather idolatrous, human, and natural things of New Spain.”[5] He compared its body of knowledge to that needed by a physician to cure the “patient” suffering from idolatry. He had three overarching goals for his research:
To describe and explain ancient Indigenous religion, beliefs, practices, deities. This was to help friars and others understand this “idolatrous” religion and to evangelize the Aztecs.To create a vocabulary of the Aztec language, Nahuatl. This provides more than definitions from a dictionary, but rather an explanation of their cultural origins, with pictures. This was to help friars and others learn Nahuatl, but also to understand the cultural context of the language.To record and document the great cultural inheritance of the Indigenous peoples of New Spain.[6]Bernardino conducted research for several decades, edited and revised it over several decades, created several versions of a 2,400-page manuscript, and addressed a cluster of religious, cultural and nature themes.[7] Copies of it were sent back to the royal court of Spain and to the Vatican in the late 16th century to explain Aztec culture. The document was essentially lost for about two centuries, until a scholar rediscovered it in the Laurentian Library (Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana) an archive library in Florence, Italy. A scholarly community of historians, anthropologists, art historians, and linguists has been actively investigating Bernardino’s work, its subtleties and mysteries, for more than 200 years.[8]
Format and structure[edit]
An illustration of the "One Flower" ceremony, from the 16th century Florentine Codex. The two drums are the teponaztli (foreground) and the huehuetl (background).
The Florentine Codex is a complex document, assembled, edited, and appended over decades. Bernardino’s goals of orientating fellow missionaries to Aztec culture, providing a rich Nahuatl vocabulary, and recording the indigenous cultural heritage at times compete with each other within it. The manuscript pages are generally of two columns, with Nahuatl, written first, on the right and a Spanish translation on the left. There are diverse voices, views, and opinions in these 2,400 pages, and the result is a document which at times can appear contradictory.[8]
Scholars have proposed several classical and medieval worldbook authors that inspired Bernardino, such as Aristotle, Pliny, Isidore of Seville, and Bartholomew the Englishman. These shaped the late medieval approach to the organization of knowledge.[9] The twelve books of the Florentine Codex are organized in the following way:
The codex is composed of the following twelve books:[11]
The Gods. Deals with gods worshiped by the natives of this land, which is New Spain.The Ceremonies. Deals with holidays and sacrifices with which these natives honored their gods in times of infidelity.The Origin of the Gods. About the creation of the gods.The Soothsayers. About Indian judiciary astrology or omens and fortune-telling arts.The Omens. Deals with foretelling these natives made from birds, animals, and insects in order to foretell the future.Rhetoric and Moral Philosophy. About prayers to their gods, rhetoric, moral philosophy, and theology in the same context.The Sun, Moon and Stars, and the Binding of the Years. Deals with the sun, the moon, the stars, and the jubilee year.Kings and Lords. About kings and lords, and the way they held their elections and governed their reigns.The Merchants. About merchants, and officials for gold, precious stones and feathers.The People. About general history: it explains vices and virtues, spiritual as well as bodily, of all manner of persons.Earthly Things. About properties of animals, birds, fish, trees, herbs, flowers, metals, and stones, and about colors.The Conquest. About the conquest of New Spain, which is Mexico City.
(books available in print)
for those interested in seeing original manuscripts and pictures..the whole thing i believe can be viewed here...
http://www.wdl.org/en/item/10096/view/1/30/