Florentine Codex

The Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España (General history of the things of New Spain), commonly known as the Florentine Codex, was the result of three decades of research led by the Franciscan missionary Bernardino de Sahagún. In 2,446 pages divided in twelve volumes, the codex presents the history, customs, knowledge, and worldviews of the people of Central Mexico shortly after the Spanish invasion. To compose this complex work, Sahagún consulted with Nahua elders who were authorities in different fields and from different communities. They answered standardized questionnaires about their beliefs and traditions and provided information in their Native form of pictorial writing. Sahagún also collaborated with his students at the College of Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco—Indigenous Nahuatl speakers who received a European education that included Spanish, Latin, and Christian theology. These young assistants interpreted and expanded the answers and images provided by the elders in Nahuatl, writing them down using the Latin alphabet, and drawing 2,468 illustrations. Sahagún then translated the Nahuatl text into Spanish. Harrowing epidemics beset the production of the manuscript, ending its production abruptly in 1577 due to the social collapse brought by famine and the cocoliztli outbreak of 1576.

These pages, which present the properties of several medicinal plants, are part of paragraph 5 in book 11, a section likely conceived as an independent herbal. Like previous volumes produced during times of relative calm, the illustrations are polished and colorful, combining the Mesoamerican tradition of pictorial writing with the European tradition of encyclopedic documentation. The admirable detail suggests that the artists had the herbs in sight while painting them. The plants listed were used to treat many ailments, including fevers, pustules, ulcers, intestinal worms, and gout. The illustrations highlight each plant’s medical uses. For example, the second plant from the top on the left page, necutic (sweet thing), is drawn with an enlarged root at right to highlight its medical importance, while a woman at left grinds the root together with the plant xoxocoyoltic to prepare medicine for eyes and genitals. Empirical analysis has found 60 percent of the plants listed in the Florentine Codex to be medically effective, a striking efficacy, especially considering that empirical methods are unable to evaluate the magical and supernatural aspects of Nahua medicine.

Image Source

• Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, MS Mediceo Palatino 220 (Florentine Codex), 1577, book 11, fols. 141v–142r (3:293v–294r). Courtesy of the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana.

Further Reading

• Castaño, Victoria Río. “The Herbal of the Florentine Codex: Description and Contextualization of Paragraph V in Book XI.” Americas 75, no. 3 (2018): 463–88.
• Lopez Austin, Alfredo. “Estudio acerca del método de investigación de fray Bernardino de Sahagún.” Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 42 (2011): 353.
• Magaloni Kerpel, Diana. The Colors of the New World: Artists, Materials, and the Creation of the Florentine Codex. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2014.
• Ortiz de Montellano, Bernard R. Aztec Medicine, Health, and Nutrition. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1990.
• Waldman, Louis, ed. Colors between Two Worlds: The Florentine Codex of Bernardino De Sahagún. Villa I Tatti 28. Florence: Villa I Tatti and Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz, 2012.