About the Florentine Codex
The Florentine Codex consists of 12 books that describe Aztec life before the Spanish conquest. Created under the supervision of Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún in the mid- to late 1500s, these manuscripts were compiled from records of conversations and interviews with indigenous people in Tlatelolco, Texacoco, and Tenochtitlan. A Spanish-language version, known as the Historial General de las costs de Nueva España (General History of the Things of New Spain) also exists.
The Florentine Codex was written primarily in Nahuatl by trilingual (Nahuatl, Spanish and Latin) Aztec students of Sahagún. The Nahuatl text appears in the right column. Some sections were translated into Spanish, and these translations appear in the left column. Many sections were not translated, and others were only summarized in Spanish. Along with the texts, the Florentine Codex contains approximately 1800 illustrations done by Aztec tlacuilos using European techniques.
About this Edition
Now this incredibly rich source of information on preconquest Aztec life is available in digital format. The Arizona State University Hispanic Research Center, in collaboration with Prof. Karl Taube of the University of California, Riverside, has prepared this professionally digitized, full-color, complete paleographic version of the codex. High resolution 8.5” x 11” TIFF files provide exquisite detail of each page. Sixteen DVD-ROM’s packaged in 3 boxes make up this digitized version of the Florentine Codex.
To order this DVD set, phone toll free (866) 965-3867 or email brp@asu.edu.
