Sahagún's "Florentine codex," a little known Aztecan natural history of the Valley of Mexico.
Arch Nat Hist
; 33(2): 302-21, 2006.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-19845064
Franciscan missionary Fray Bernardino de Sahagún arrived in New Spain (Mexico) in 1529 to proselytize Aztecs surviving the Conquest, begun by Hernán Cortés in 1519. About 1558 he commenced his huge opus "Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España" completed in Latin-Nahuatl manuscript in 1569. The best surviving version, the "Florentine Codex," 1579 in Spanish-Nahuatl, is the basis for the editions published since 1829. The first English translation was issued in 13 volumes between 1950 and 1982, and the first facsimile was published in 1979. Book 11, "Earthly things," is a comprehensive natural history of the Valley of Mexico based on pre-Cortésian Aztec knowledge. Sahagún's work, largely unknown among English-speaking biologists, is an untapped treasury of information about Aztecan natural history. It also establishes the Aztecs as the preeminent pioneering naturalists of North American, and Sahagún and his colleagues as their documentarians.
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Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Religion and Science
/
Authorship
/
Zoology
/
Biology
/
Books, Illustrated
/
Botany
Limits:
Humans
Country/Region as subject:
Mexico
Language:
En
Journal:
Arch Nat Hist
Year:
2006
Document type:
Article
Country of publication:
United kingdom