Article suitable for older students

‘Facsimile of an Azteck MS depicting the migrations of that extraordinary people...’

26th May 2024

Mexicolore Director Graciela Sánchez studies a copy of the Codex Boturini at the Society of Antiquaries of London

On hearing of an obscure Mexican manuscript in the collections of the Society of Antiquaries of London, catalogued ‘Facsimile of an Azteck MS...’, we resolved to investigate. It turns out to be not just ‘any old copy’, but a lithographic copy made in the 1830s by a highly talented Italian engraver and painter, Agostino Aglio, the same artist who illustrated the catalogues of the great ‘Ancient Mexico’ exhibition in London of 1824. Read on...! (Compiled by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore)

The manuscript is catalogued as no. BAA 39, presented to the British Archaeological Association on May 20th 1846 by Thomas Joseph Pettigrew. After identifying it through photographs, and armed with our own hand-drawn, modern facsimile and a detailed 2007 study of the Codex by Patrick Johansson (Arqueología Mexicana), with the help of Librarian Becky Loughead and Archivist Kat Petersen, we were privileged to have laid out specially for us (the exact 5.5m length of the library’s main reading table!) a copy of the early C16 Codex Boturini (also known as La Tira de la Peregrinación, or Pilgrimage Strip), the original of which is held in Mexico City’s Biblioteca Nacional de Antropología e Historia.
The Codex Boturini - which British historian Gordon Brotherston calls the Aztlan Annals - is treasured in Mexico as a key MS for scholars researching the Aztec migration from Aztlan, their pictographic writing system and their cosmovision. First mentioned in 1746, the original was collected by Italian historian Lorenzo Boturini Benaduci, and brought to London 80 years later by English traveller and collector William Bullock, to be displayed as part of ‘the first exhibition of Pre-Columbian antiquities anywhere in the world’ in the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, in 1824.

You can read more of the tragic story of Lorenzo Boturini - and the scattering, indeed looting, of his valuable collection - in another of our articles in this section (link below). Just two years prior to Bullock learning of the original Codex, it had been transferred to the Ministerio de Relaciones Interiores y Exteriores in the Mexican capital. Bullock arrived in Mexico at a most critical time in the country’s history. Independence from Spain had just been won in 1821, the government opened its doors to economic, political and cultural influences from previously excluded countries abroad, and the revolutionary turmoil had led to weak national controls over the movement (especially the export) of historical treasures. Even so, he was exceptionally lucky, as he himself recognised:-
’[Mexican codices] are articles of such interest, and so much prized by the government, that, though I experienced from the public authorities the greatest liberality... yet no offers of mine could induce them to part with these MSS until I had given them an assurance that, after they had been copied in England, I would transmit them again to Mexico. I have likewise been so fortunate as to procure some of the pictures of Indian antiquities formerly in the collection of the celebrated and ill-used Chevalier Boturini...’ (Bullock 1825: 2: 66).

In London, Bullock displayed the Codex, alongside several other manuscripts and maps and an impressive array of original artefacts, in his pioneering and by all accounts most popular exhibition ‘Ancient and Modern Mexico’, held in the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly - over 60,000 people paid to see it (Costeloe, 2008: 140). Opened in April 1824, it ended with the sale of most of his Mexican collection to the British Museum in September 1825 (ibid, 145). Thankfully, Bullock faithfully - and personally - returned the Codex Boturini to Mexico in 1826 (Graham, op cit, 65).
Not only did Bullock commission Aglio to produce illustrations of his exhibition catalogue, he asked the Italian to create an enlarged copy of the Codex Boturini to be displayed all the way round the entablature (atop the columns) of the exhibition hall.

From Aglio’s illustration we’ve managed to identify the sequence of the Codex images: his picture was made facing the entrance to the exhibition hall, above which was suspended a huge cast of the Aztec Sunstone: entering, turning left and looking up, the visitor could see the story of the Aztec migration in the Tira, beginning with folio 1 and continuing all the way around the hall, its 22 pages ending on the visitor’s right on the other side of the entrance (see pic 4).
Although regarded as ‘by far the most authoritative version’ (Brotherston 1995: 47) of the (several) narratives of the Mexica migration, oddly the Tira ends abruptly, before the Aztecs reach Lake Texcoco - see the final page, which still displays a note stuck onto the original by Bullock as an exhibition caption starting ‘No. 48. - A very fine Azteck Manuscript, on Maguey, in 21 folds...’, by following the link to our entry explaining the last page, below.

How do we know the copy in the SAL archives is by Aglio? In his detailed 1993 study of Boturini’s work, Ian Graham reproduces a picture (2011: 51) of pages 19-20 of Aglio’s lithographic facsimile of the Codex, that he made for Lord Kingsborough of Antiquities of Mexico fame (who, as a frequent visitor to the exhibition, was introduced to Aglio by Bullock). Faintly visible on the pages are a series of hand-written numbers above three salient characters in the Aztec migration story. Clearly these were added by Aglio at Kingsborough’s request to provide a key to the personalities and places involved. Sure enough, we find the same sequence of identifying numbers on the SAL facsimile (see pic 6), and attached at the end of the manuscript is a page of ‘References’, listing the subjects concerned (pic 5).

Graham appears to have been in possession of two Aglio copies of the Codex Boturini, bound together, formerly belonging to Kingsborough and to Sir Thomas Phillipps (Graham 2011: 62); a similar Aglio copy is in the Boston Public Library. Sure enough, the number references are shown on the pages of both the BPL copy and the SAL copy, virtually identical to those reproduced by Graham from the lithograph Aglio produced for Kingsborough (see pic 6).
Incidentally, another unusual feature of the original Tira is the fact that ‘the sole colour is in the red lines that connect the dates’ (Glass & Robertson 1975: 100) - see pic 7.

Special thanks to: SAL Learning and Outreach Manager Michelle Johansen, SAL Librarian Becky Loughead, SAL Archivist Kat Petersen, BPL Rare Books and Manuscripts Specialist Claire Drone-Silvers.

References/sources:-
• Brotherston, Gordon (1995) Painted Books from Mexico: Codices in UK Collections and the World they Represent, British Museum Press
• Bullock, William (1825) Six Months Residence and Travels in Mexico, 2nd. edition, vol. II, John Murray, London
• Costeloe, Michael P. (2008) William Bullock - Connoisseur and Virtuoso of the Egyptian Hall: Piccadilly to Mexico (1773-1849), HiPLAM, University of Bristol
• Galarza, Joaquín & Libura, Krystyna M. (1999) Para leer la Tira de la Peregrinación, Ediciones Tecolote, Mexico DF
• Glass, John B. & Robertson, Donald (1975) ‘A Census of Native Middle American Pictorial Manuscripts’ in Handbook of Middle American Indians, Vol. 14 (Volume Editor Howard F. Cline), University of Texas Press, Austin
• Graham, Ian (2011) ‘Three Early Collectors in Mesoamerica’ in Collecting the Pre-Columbian Past, editor Elizabeth Hill Boone, Dumbarton Oaks Research Library, Washington DC (originally published 1993)
• Johansson K., Patrick (2007) ‘Tira de la Peregrinación (Códice Boturini)’, Arqueología Mexicana, Edición Especial Códices no. 26, Diciembre de 2007, Editorial Raíces, Mexico DF.

Picture sources:-
• Main, pic 1, pic 6 (bottom) & pic 7: photos by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore
• Pic 2: image scanned from Galarza & Libura (see above)
• Pic 3 (main): image downloaded from https://web.archive.org/web/20110514062358/http://www.georgianindex.net/Bullocks/Egyptian_Hall.html; (inset): image downloaded from https://archive.org/details/descriptivecata00Bull
• Pic 4: image courtesy of and © London Metropolitan Archives, record no. 323388
• Pic 5: image courtesy of the Society of Antiquaries of London
• Pic 6 (top): image courtesy of Boston Public Library, record no. Ms.q.Am.2327.