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Secondary sourceBook1569

Florentine Codex

Bernardino de Sahagún with Nahua collaborators · 1569

A Nahuatl-language illustrated manuscript recording indigenous accounts of omens, Moctezuma's envoys, and the Spanish conquest.

Contains the indigenous account of Moctezuma's envoys, his speech to Cortés, and his imprisonment.

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Open bound manuscript on a green cloth, showing two pages of handwritten text in columns with small painted illustrations of fish, a shell, a crab, and shrimp. Page headed 'Libro undecimo'.
Florentine Codex, compiled 1545-1590, completed 1569. Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence.

About this source

What it is

The Florentine Codex is a 16th-century manuscript created from 1545 to 1590 by the Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún working with Nahua elders and former students who had been educated at the Colegio de Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco. Written in Nahuatl with over 2,000 illustrations, it is held today in the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana in Florence, Italy.

Why it matters

The Codex preserves the classic indigenous account of Moctezuma's reign, including the omens said to precede the conquest, his envoys, his welcome speech to Cortés, and his captivity. Because it was compiled with Nahua collaborators rather than only Spanish observers, it offers a rare window into how the Mexica themselves remembered these events.

Look closer

  • Why might Sahagún have needed Nahua elders and students to produce this work?
  • How might an account written decades after the conquest differ from one written during it?
  • What does the detailed illustration of plants, animals, and fish (as in this volume) tell you about the scope of the project beyond politics?

This book is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Montezuma II and Hernán Cortés on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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A painted page from a colonial Mexican manuscript with a blue-green border column of glyphs on the left. Rows of hilltop place-sign glyphs with Nahuatl labels and small pictorial symbols such as a seated figure, a bird, a shield with arrows, and plants, arranged on pale paper with a footer of writing at the bottom.Document

Secondary source

Codex Mendoza, Folio 15v

Unknown author · 16th century

Black-and-white lithograph titled 'Prision de Motezuma' showing Spanish armored soldiers with helmets and halberds on the left facing a group of Aztec-style figures in feathered headdresses on the right, including a central man in a feathered crown and cloak. A large draped canopy and stone columns frame the scene; a shield lies in the lower right. Printed credits read 'J. Serra lit.', 'Lit. Vidal, Olmo 29' and 'Riera, Editor Barcelona'.Painting

Secondary source

Prisión del emperador Moctezuma

Rafael del Castillo de la Cuesta · 1880

Painting showing Hernán Cortés seizing Moctezuma, a later imagined depiction of the event.Painting

Secondary source

Hernán Cortés takes Moctezuma prisoner

Louis Auguste Turgis · 1895

Woodcut title page of a 1522 Spanish printed letter. A seated, crowned figure holds a scepter in an arched room with checkered floor, flanked by a city scene and a landscape. Below is black-letter Spanish text beginning 'Carta de relación enviada a su S. majestad del emperador nuestro señor por el capitán general de la nueva España, llamado Fernando Cortés', with a handwritten signature at the bottom.Letter

Primary source

Second Letter to Charles V

Hernán Cortés · 1520 (printed 1522)

Black-and-white lithograph titled 'Muerte de Motezuma' showing two figures on a stone terrace of a stepped temple. One figure in a cloak reaches out toward a tall stone wall, while a smaller figure crouches beside him. Smoke rises behind, and a city with towers and palm trees lies in the distance. An arrow lies on the stones.Painting

Secondary source

Recreation of Moctezuma's Death

Rafael del Castillo de la Cuesta · 1880

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