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Book/Printed Material General History of the Things of New Spain by Fray Bernardino de Sahagún: The Florentine Codex. Book III: The Origin of the Gods. Libro tercero, del principio que tuujeron los dioses

About this Item

Title

  • General History of the Things of New Spain by Fray Bernardino de Sahagún: The Florentine Codex. Book III: The Origin of the Gods.

Other Title

  • Libro tercero, del principio que tuujeron los dioses

Summary

  • Historia general de las cosas de nueva España (General history of the things of New Spain) is an encyclopedic work about the people and culture of central Mexico compiled by Fray Bernardino de Sahagún (1499--1590), a Franciscan missionary who arrived in Mexico in 1529, eight years after completion of the Spanish conquest by Hernan Cortés. Commonly referred to as the Florentine Codex, the manuscript consists of 12 books devoted to different topics. Book III deals with the origin of the gods, in particular Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl, and includes appendices on the afterlife and on education. Aztec religion was permeated with stories about the birth, death, and return to life of the gods. This perennial process of regeneration was reflected in ceremonies involving human and other sacrifice and in the architecture of Tenochtitlan. The Templo Mayor (Great Pyramid) was dedicated to Huitzilopochtli and Tlaloc and had separate shrines to each of these gods. This dual construction had great significance in Mesoamerican cosmology, symbolizing the two sacred mountains, Tonacatepetl (the Hill of Sustenance), and Coatepec (the Hill of the Snake). The shrine dedicated to Tlaloc, the god of rain, represented the mountain housing maize and other things that Quetzalcoatl stole from the gods to give to mankind. The shrine dedicated to Huitzilopochtli, the god of war and of the sun, represented the mountain on which the god was born, already an adult and dressed as a warrior, his mother Coatlicue having generated him after she placed a feather ball in her lap. On the mountain the god defeated his sister Coyolxauhqui, the moon goddess, and his 400 brothers who were jealous of his birth. Once dead, they went to form the Milky Way. Among the noteworthy illustrations in Book III is the depiction, on folio 232v, in the appendix on education, of parents taking children to school. The nobles sent their children to the calmecac (row of houses), an extremely strict school reserved for the elite, where they received instructions on how to become "those who command, chiefs and senators and nobles, ... those who have military posts."

Names

  • Sahagún, Bernardino de, 1499-1590 Creator.

Created / Published

  • [place of publication not identified] : [publisher not identified], 1577.

Headings

  • -  Mexico
  • -  1300 to 1577
  • -  Aztec gods
  • -  Aztec mythology
  • -  Aztecs
  • -  Codex
  • -  Florentine Codex
  • -  Indians of Mexico
  • -  Indigenous peoples
  • -  Mesoamerica

Notes

  • -  Title devised, in English, by Library staff.
  • -  Original resource extent: Bound as part of volume 1. Ink on paper ; 310 x 212 millimeters.
  • -  Reference extracted from World Digital Library: Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, The World of the Aztecs in the Florentine Codex, (Mandragora: 2007).
  • -  Original resource at: Medicea Laurenziana Library, Florence.
  • -  Content in Coatepec Nahuatl and Spanish.
  • -  Description based on data extracted from World Digital Library, which may be extracted from partner institutions.

Medium

  • 1 online resource.

Source Collection

  • Florentine Codex

Digital Id

Library of Congress Control Number

  • 2021667848

Online Format

  • compressed data
  • pdf
  • image

Additional Metadata Formats

IIIF Presentation Manifest

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Credit Line: [Original Source citation], World Digital Library

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Cite This Item

Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

Sahagún, Bernardino De, Creator. General History of the Things of New Spain by Fray Bernardino de Sahagún: The Florentine Codex. Book III: The Origin of the Gods. [Place of Publication Not Identified: Publisher Not Identified, 1577] Pdf. https://www.loc.gov/item/2021667848/.

APA citation style:

Sahagún, B. D. (1577) General History of the Things of New Spain by Fray Bernardino de Sahagún: The Florentine Codex. Book III: The Origin of the Gods. [Place of Publication Not Identified: Publisher Not Identified] [Pdf] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2021667848/.

MLA citation style:

Sahagún, Bernardino De, Creator. General History of the Things of New Spain by Fray Bernardino de Sahagún: The Florentine Codex. Book III: The Origin of the Gods. [Place of Publication Not Identified: Publisher Not Identified, 1577] Pdf. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/2021667848/>.