Book Review: The Codex Mexicanus: A Guide to Life in Late Sixteenth-Century New Spain, by Lori Boornazian Diel

In the late Postclassic period (ca. 1250–1521), which immediately precedes the Spanish conquest, the practice of recording a number of subjects—including history, timekeeping, religion, tribute, botany, and genealogy—in manuscripts was widespread in Mesoamerica (comprising parts of modern-day Mexico and Central America). The significance of Mesoamerican manuscripts cannot be overstated; however, analyzing them is an arduous exercise. Unlike the Maya, who developed hieroglyphic writing, the Aztecs (also Nahuas) used imagery and calendar glyphs exclusively. After 1521, during the colonial period, the manuscript-making practice continued and indigenous scribes adopted alphabetic text, which elucidates images and glyphs in Pre-Columbian manuscripts. Yet, the complexity of sixteenth-century society, straddling an esteemed indigenous past as it confronted new cultural realities, particularly the advent of Christianity and Aztec responses to the new religion, renders colonial manuscripts difficult to study. While Mesoamerican manuscripts have been widely analyzed, some, including the Aztec Codex Mexicanus (ca. 1580s)—currently conserved at the...