The founding of Tenochtitlan from Codex Duran, 1581.
(Post-Conquest).
Codex Duran is named for the author Diego Duran who wrote a history of the Mexica people based on a Nahuatl source. His codex is illustrated by native artists.
A codex is a pictographic manuscript; the plural is codices. Pre-Columbian Mesoamericans produced beautiful manuscripts on deer hide. During the conquest and into the colonial period, the art evolved with the introduction of European painting styles and the use of Spanish orthography (essentially spelling) and the letters of the Roman alphabet, to transliterate the Nahuatl (Aztec) or other indigenous languages. Some post-conquest codices are bilingual, written in Spanish and an indigenous language.
The Mexica had been told to found their city where they found an eagle devouring a snake, while perched on a cactus on an island in the middle of a lake.
Moctezuma's Mexico: Visions of the Aztec World.
David Carrasco and Eduardo Matos Moctezuma.
Niwot, Colorado: University Press of Colorado, 1992. P. 18.
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