Work · New Spain (colonial Mexico)
The Florentine Codex
completed c. 1577
Encyclopedic manuscript on Nahua life compiled under the Franciscan Bernardino de Sahagún with Nahua scholars and artists.
The Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España, in parallel Nahuatl and Spanish columns with many illustrations, records Nahua religion, ceremonies, songs, and society. It was produced with Nahua elders, trilingual students trained at the Colegio de Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco, and Indigenous painters.
Its purpose was partly to help missionaries recognise and suppress 'idolatry'. Its Nahuatl and Spanish texts sometimes differ, and scholars study the codex as a collaborative and contested document.