Three Texts in One: Book XII of the Florentine Codex

A sixteenth-century manuscript known as the Florentine Codex is an outstanding example of graphic pluralism in early colonial Mexico. The codex consists of twelve books on many aspects of Nahua culture and language, presented in parallel columns of Nahuatl- and Castilian-language alphabetic text, including many illustrations drawn by Nahua artists. The twelfth and final book treats the Spanish-led war on Mexico-Tenochtitlan. This book is by far the most extensive indigenous account of that war, or any other war between Native American and European peoples, for that matter. This essay considers the manuscript as three separate texts, examines differences among the three, and offers new insights into Nahua memories of the conquest of Mexico.