Arni Brownstone, assistant curator of World Cultures at the Royal Ontario Museum, witnessed the flow of scholars coming to study the sixteenth-century Lienzo of Tlapiltepec. Originally from the Mixteca Alta in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, the lienzo is a history painted on a large cotton cloth depicting the narrative of the royal house of Coixtlahuaca, a politically important city during Mesoamerica’s Postclassic period (ca. 950–1521 CE). Brownstone’s preface offers a refreshingly truthful account of the intrigue that brought the lienzo to Toronto. The book celebrates the scholarship attending the installation of a digitally enhanced copy in the museum, a strategy that not only preserves the delicate lienzo but also captures the original colors that faded over centuries. A valuable aspect of this book is the inclusion of this reproduction and numerous full-color details of the lienzo, images of other related manuscripts and lienzos, and beautifully illustrative maps. By modern...
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