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The Bodleian Library’s Mesoamerican Manuscripts Chris Fletcher, Head of Western Manuscripts, Bodleian Library, Oxford [email protected]

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Page 1: The Bodleian Librarys Mesoamerican Manuscripts Chris Fletcher, Head of Western Manuscripts, Bodleian Library, Oxford chris.fletcher@bodleian.ox.ac.uk

The Bodleian Library’s Mesoamerican Manuscripts

Chris Fletcher, Head of Western Manuscripts, Bodleian Library, Oxford

[email protected]

Page 2: The Bodleian Librarys Mesoamerican Manuscripts Chris Fletcher, Head of Western Manuscripts, Bodleian Library, Oxford chris.fletcher@bodleian.ox.ac.uk

Bodleian Library

• 1327 – University Library being built

• 1488 – Duke Humfrey’s Library

• 1550 – Denuded of books by Henry VIII reformers

• 1602 – Refounded by Sir Thomas Bodley

• 1610 – Deposit Agreement with Stationers’

• Over 400 years of concerted collecting, cataloguing and reading

Page 3: The Bodleian Librarys Mesoamerican Manuscripts Chris Fletcher, Head of Western Manuscripts, Bodleian Library, Oxford chris.fletcher@bodleian.ox.ac.uk

The Bodleian Today

• Largest university library in Europe• Second largest in UK• 9 million books• 33 km Special Collections• Many buildings across the city• Major redevelopments occurring• Weston Library: dedicated to Special

Collections

Page 4: The Bodleian Librarys Mesoamerican Manuscripts Chris Fletcher, Head of Western Manuscripts, Bodleian Library, Oxford chris.fletcher@bodleian.ox.ac.uk

The Bodleian’s Mexican Treasures

All acquired C17

Three screenfolds:• Codex Laud. MS. Laud Misc. 678• Codex Bodley. MS. Mex. d. 1• Codex Selden. MS. Arch. Selden. A. 2

One roll of native amatl paper:• The Selden Roll. MS. Arch. Selden. A. 72 (3)

One European-style book on imported European paper:• Codex Mendoza. MS. Arch. Selden. A. 1

Page 5: The Bodleian Librarys Mesoamerican Manuscripts Chris Fletcher, Head of Western Manuscripts, Bodleian Library, Oxford chris.fletcher@bodleian.ox.ac.uk

Codex Laud (MS Laud Misc. 678)

• Acquired 16 June 1636 • Donated along with many mss from William

Laud, archbishop of Canterbury • Screenfold – the smallest, oldest, most

mysterious of the 3 we own• Obscure geographic origin• Divinatory and ritual aspects of the native

calendar • Pre-Hispanic – no clear consensus on date?

Page 6: The Bodleian Librarys Mesoamerican Manuscripts Chris Fletcher, Head of Western Manuscripts, Bodleian Library, Oxford chris.fletcher@bodleian.ox.ac.uk

FACSIMILE of Codex Laud

Page 7: The Bodleian Librarys Mesoamerican Manuscripts Chris Fletcher, Head of Western Manuscripts, Bodleian Library, Oxford chris.fletcher@bodleian.ox.ac.uk

Codex Laud: The Rain God as Lord of Time

Page 8: The Bodleian Librarys Mesoamerican Manuscripts Chris Fletcher, Head of Western Manuscripts, Bodleian Library, Oxford chris.fletcher@bodleian.ox.ac.uk

Codex Laud – The Red Sun God

Page 9: The Bodleian Librarys Mesoamerican Manuscripts Chris Fletcher, Head of Western Manuscripts, Bodleian Library, Oxford chris.fletcher@bodleian.ox.ac.uk

Codex Bodley (MS Mex. D. 1)

• Acquired through Thomas Bodley who knew its Mexican origin

• Just Pre-Hispanic

• Mixtec screenfold – glued deerskin

• 23 pages, of which 20 painted both sides

• genealogies of the ruling dynasties of two Mixtec communities, Ñuu Tnoo (Tilantongo) and Ndisi Nuu (Tlaxiaco).

• Maarten Jansen & Gabina Aurora Pérez Jiménez, ed., _Codex Bodley: a painted chronicle from the Mixtec Highlands, Mexico_ (Treasures from the Bodleian Library, 1), Oxford 2005

Page 10: The Bodleian Librarys Mesoamerican Manuscripts Chris Fletcher, Head of Western Manuscripts, Bodleian Library, Oxford chris.fletcher@bodleian.ox.ac.uk

Codex Bodley (MS Mex. d. 1)

Page 11: The Bodleian Librarys Mesoamerican Manuscripts Chris Fletcher, Head of Western Manuscripts, Bodleian Library, Oxford chris.fletcher@bodleian.ox.ac.uk

Codex Selden

• Acquired 1659 as part of John Selden’s Library

• Second of our two Mixtec screenfolds

• Genealogy and life stories of the ruling dynasty of the town of Añute

• Genealogies go to 1556 …

• Survival of native culture?

• But it is also a palimpsest

Page 12: The Bodleian Librarys Mesoamerican Manuscripts Chris Fletcher, Head of Western Manuscripts, Bodleian Library, Oxford chris.fletcher@bodleian.ox.ac.uk

Codex Selden

Page 13: The Bodleian Librarys Mesoamerican Manuscripts Chris Fletcher, Head of Western Manuscripts, Bodleian Library, Oxford chris.fletcher@bodleian.ox.ac.uk

The Selden Roll (MS. Arch. Selden. A. 72(3))

• Acquired from the Library of John Selden, 1659

• Roll of native amatl paper (pulped bark)• Mounted C19 on linen• 38 x 350 cm• Early colonial period, C16• Southern Mexican highlands• Migratory journeys of divine ancestors,

up to early settlement

Page 14: The Bodleian Librarys Mesoamerican Manuscripts Chris Fletcher, Head of Western Manuscripts, Bodleian Library, Oxford chris.fletcher@bodleian.ox.ac.uk

The Selden Roll (MS. Arch. Selden. A. 72(3))

Page 15: The Bodleian Librarys Mesoamerican Manuscripts Chris Fletcher, Head of Western Manuscripts, Bodleian Library, Oxford chris.fletcher@bodleian.ox.ac.uk

Codex Mendoza (MS. Arch. Selden. A. 1)

• First hand account of Mexica culture• Made in Mexico at the command of Mendoza,

viceroy of Mexico, c.1541• Sent to Emperor Charles v• Captured by French Privateers• Possessed by Andre Thevet, French

cosmographer to the King 1553• Other owners include Samuel Purchas: ‘the

choisest of my Jewels’• Acquired 1659, as part of John Selden’s library

Page 16: The Bodleian Librarys Mesoamerican Manuscripts Chris Fletcher, Head of Western Manuscripts, Bodleian Library, Oxford chris.fletcher@bodleian.ox.ac.uk

Codex Mendoza: folio 2r

• 71 folios Spanish paper• Aztec painter• Native speakers

interpreted the pictures for the Spanish scribe

• Three parts – history of Aztec conquests, the tribute paid by the empire’s 38 provinces, typical lives from birth to death

• The founding of Tenochtitlan!

Page 17: The Bodleian Librarys Mesoamerican Manuscripts Chris Fletcher, Head of Western Manuscripts, Bodleian Library, Oxford chris.fletcher@bodleian.ox.ac.uk

Codex Mendoza, f. 40

Different provinces yield:

• Warrior costumes

• Bees’ honey

• Copper axes

• Turquoise stones and masks

• Tiles of gold

Page 18: The Bodleian Librarys Mesoamerican Manuscripts Chris Fletcher, Head of Western Manuscripts, Bodleian Library, Oxford chris.fletcher@bodleian.ox.ac.uk

Codex Mendoza: Folio 51r – a wedding ceremony

Page 19: The Bodleian Librarys Mesoamerican Manuscripts Chris Fletcher, Head of Western Manuscripts, Bodleian Library, Oxford chris.fletcher@bodleian.ox.ac.uk

Existing Bodleian resources/surrogates

• Codex Bodley reproduction and study, pub 2005 by Bodley Publications

• Codex Mendoza – 4 vol 1992 Facsimile pub. Berkeley in collaboration with Bodleian

• Images of varying quality from all 5 manuscripts available on Bodleian Digital Image Library

• Existing high quality digital scans of Bodley, Selden

• Existing 5x4 transparencies of Mendoza, Seden roll

• Little coverage of Laud

Page 20: The Bodleian Librarys Mesoamerican Manuscripts Chris Fletcher, Head of Western Manuscripts, Bodleian Library, Oxford chris.fletcher@bodleian.ox.ac.uk

Digital Projects

• Opportunities to exploit and enhance existing information/images – 25, 000 slides of medieval & renaissance illumination on Luna

• Jane Austen – a new online edition with images • John Johnson – mass digitization but with rich

catalogue records• Shakespeare’s Quartos – powerful encoding• Digital Image Library

http://www.odl.ox.ac.uk/digitalimagelibrary/index.html

Page 21: The Bodleian Librarys Mesoamerican Manuscripts Chris Fletcher, Head of Western Manuscripts, Bodleian Library, Oxford chris.fletcher@bodleian.ox.ac.uk

Future ideas

• Further integration of digital resources

• Enhancing quality of images AND metadata

• Integration with catalogues

• Exploiting existing scholarship

• External collaboration with international and national partners where possible