The Codex Tudela is a 16th-century pictorial Aztec codex. It is based on the same prototype as the Codex Magliabechiano, the Codex Ixtlilxochitl, and other documents of the Magliabechiano Group.
Little is known about the codex's history. The Spanish government bought the manuscript when it was rediscovered in 1940, and it is now held by the Museo de América in Madrid. Sr José Tudela de la Orden, after whom it was named, worked at the Museo de America and made the codex known to scholars. In Spanish it is sometimes called the Códice del Museo de América.
The Tudela Codex is a document written in mid 16th century in Mexico during the early colonial stage over European laid paper. It has three parts, Libro Indígena, Libro Pintado Europeo and Libro Escrito Europeo. The first part occupies pages 11 to 125 and was painted by the Indian scribes in a Pre-Hispanic style near 1540, containing iconography and hieroglyphic writing information regarding Mexican or Aztec religion; types of calendar, rituals regarding disease and death, gods of the drunk, etc. The codex is a religious document that details deities, religious rites, religious ceremonies, cosmological beliefs, calendars and rituals regarding topics such as disease and death.
Further reading
- Boone, Elizabeth Hill (1983). The Codex Magliabechiano and the Lost Prototype of the Magliabechiano Group. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 9780520045200.
- Robertson, Donald (1994). Mexican Manuscript Painting of the Early Colonial Period: The Metropolitan Schools. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
<Facsimilefinder. (2017). Tudela Codex « Facsimile edition. Retrieved from https://www.facsimilefinder.com/facsimiles/tudela-codex-facsimile>
