Decoding the Codex Borgia
Visual Symbols of Time and Space in Ancient Mexico
Exploring the meanings in the intricate symbolism of a rare Precolumbian manuscript
This book explores the rich symbolism of the Codex Borgia, a masterpiece of Precolumbian art dating to the fifteenth century, one of the few surviving books from before the Spanish conquest of Mexico. Susan Milbrath uses information from the fields of art history, anthropology, ethnohistory, natural history, and cultural astronomy to show how the manuscript’s intricate and colorful imagery conveys complex ideas related to Mesoamerican myths and religion.
Milbrath sets the work in historical context, establishing its provenance in the Puebla-Tlaxcala Valley of Central Mexico and pinpointing the date it was painted based on rain almanacs found in its pages. She offers a new interpretation of a unique narrative section that has long intrigued scholars, arguing that the ceremonial variations depicted in it are related to the solar cycle. Overall, this book opens new doors in the study of the Codex Borgia by identifying seasonal imagery in the narrative and associated astronomical events, especially those that involve the three brightest objects in the sky: the sun, the moon, and Venus. Decoding the Codex Borgia is an illuminating journey into the culture and cosmology of the Aztecs and their neighboring communities.
“Milbrath’s detailed study demonstrates that the scribes who made the Codex Borgia invested its pages with densely layered meanings and astronomical predictions based on careful observations, the complexity of which we are only beginning to grasp.”—Andrew D. Turner, coeditor of Flower Worlds: Religion, Aesthetics, and Ideology in Mesoamerica and the American Southwest
Susan Milbrath, emeritus curator of Latin American art and archaeology at the Florida Museum of Natural History, is coeditor of Cosmology, Calendars, and Horizon-Based Astronomy in Ancient Mesoamerica and the author of Star Gods of the Maya: Astronomy in Art, Folklore, and Calendars.
Contents
List of Figures ix
List of Color Plates xi List of Sky Maps xiii
List of Synopsis Plates xv List of Tables xvii Preface xix Acknowledgments xxvii
1. Setting the Stage for Study of the Codex Borgia 1
2. Scholarly Research on the Unique Narrative on Borgia 29–46 46
3. Seasonality in the Central Mexican Festivals and the Borgia Narrative 59
4. Calendar Round Almanacs in the Codex Borgia 85
5. Deities of the Sun and Moon in Borgia Group Codices 115
6. Lunar Phases and Eclipses in the Borgia Group Codices 153
7. Celestial Cycles in the Codex Borgia Narrative 171
8. How Can the Codex Borgia Be Decoded? 228
Appendix A. Aztec Gods Associated with the Twenty Trecena Periods and Their Associated Fates 271
Glossary 283
Notes 289
Bibliography 379
Index 407
