Article suitable for older students

The story of the Codex Fejérváry-Mayer (1)

29th Aug 2023

The story of the {italicCodex Fejérváry-Mayer} (1)

First two pages of the original Codex Fejérváry-Mayer in the World Museum Liverpool

One of the most beautiful and best preserved of the 16 priceless ancient Mesoamerican codices known in the world today, this 44-page accordion-style deerskin codex - aka the Tonalamatl de los pochtecas or Códice Tezcatlipoca - contains what has been called ‘the Fourth World’s most celebrated page’ (Brotherston 1992: 96) (see picture above, right). Its present home is the World Museum Liverpool. (Compiled by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore)

We were fortunate to see the original on public display in the World Museum in 2015 coinciding with the major exhibition ‘Mayas: Revelation of an Endless Time’ (pic 1). Here we won’t be discussing the content, save to point out that its Nahuatl name – in English ‘Merchants’ Almanac’ – alludes to an important purpose for the manuscript in ancient times. Rather, we will try and trace its European story, focussing particularly on the last two centuries.
Nothing is known for sure about when and with whom the Codex reached Europe, though scholars feel it is likely to have crossed the ocean sent from Mexico to Spain as one of a number of exotic gifts for King Carlos V. Even then, all we have prior to it being documented for the first time in 1828 are conjectures.

Miguel León-Portilla suggests (1985: 13) it could have followed a similar trajectory to that of another of the 16, the Mixtec Codex Vindobonensis Mexicanus I (Códice Yuta Tnoho): this latter manuscript was donated first by the Spanish king to King Manuel I of Portugal (they were related), then to Pope Clement VII and on from Italy via a number of owners (it has had up to 18 different names!) there and in Germany to end up eventually (1677-78) in the hands of Austrian Emperor Leopold I who deposited it in the Imperial Library in Vienna, where it was first documented in 1679 (Adelhofer 1974: 16).
In the case of our Codex, it first appears in written records late in the day when, on 2nd June 1828, it was purchased by a Hungarian noble and collector of antiquities, Gábor (Gabriel) Fejérváry (1780-1851), who bought it from a celebrated fellow Hungarian antique (Greek and Roman) coin collector, traveller and amateur archaeologist, Count Vihály Viczay (1756-1831) (pic 2). Ruwet (2013: 142) suggests the two were ‘intimate friends’ and that they often exchanged antiquities, paintings and other art objects.

Gábor and his father Károly (1743-1794) were great bibliophiles; since the time of Ferdinand I (Holy Roman Emperor in the 16th century) the family owned property in Komlós Keresztes in the Tapoly district of the county of Sáros, in North Hungary – sharing a border with the Austrian crownland Galicia, that in 1804 became part of the newly proclaimed Austrian Empire. At that time, Austria and Hungary had close connections not just geographically but politically too...
By all accounts since his youth Gábor Fejérváry had become acquainted with some of the most important art collectors of the time and had travelled widely in Europe.

He worked for, accompanied abroad and in due course represented, leading art collector and high society figure Baron József Brudern, who resided in a luxurious and exclusive building, called ‘Párisi House’, on Kígyó Square in (Buda)Pest (pic 4), designed for him by Mihály Pollack, the architect of the Hungarian National Museum, itself modelled on the British Museum.
With its museum and academy, Pest had by then become the scientific centre of Hungary, and within it ‘Paris House’ was ‘for fully ten years the trysting-place of the most intellectual men in Pest’ (Seler 1901: 1). Fejérváry lived alternately in Pest and Gyöngyös, a town 80 kms east of Pest.

Ferenc Pulszky (1814-1897), Fejérváry’s nephew – who was later to inherit his uncle’s collection – was for a quarter of a century Director of the National Museum; in his youth he visited the Brudern residence and recalled later ‘József Brudern was one of the most handsome men in the country. He travelled abroad a lot, […] and lived in Pest as a central figure of the capital’s social life.’ (https://guideme.hu/2019/07/18/budapests-brand-new-gem-parisi-udvar/)

Meanwhile, Vihály Viczay, himself descended from a noble dynasty, had established a museum based on his private collection, in the magnificent Castle-Palace at Hédervár, his place of birth. The Palace, surrounded by its beautiful park (pic 6) – and in particular the museum - was visited regularly by foreign intellectuals. During his military career, Count Viczay befriended and travelled in Europe with Count István Széchenyi (pic 7) – widely considered one of the greatest statesmen in his country’s history: both went on to become important figures of the reform era.

Széchenyi grew up in Vienna, had already travelled widely in Europe, carefully studying each country’s institutions. His father Ferenc, an enlightened aristocrat, founded the Hungarian National Museum in 1802 as well as the National Library. Significantly, Ferenc Széchenyi had been an ‘enthusiastic’ student of Michael Denis, the Director of the Imperial Library in Vienna, where the Codex Vindobonensis was kept (Segesvary 2005: 102).
The journey with Széchenyi had a great impact on Viczay, awakening his interest in archaeology, and on his return home, Viczay greatly expanded his collection, giving it a new ethnographic as well as its numismatic focus.

(It’s worth noting that Hédervár is today only an hour’s drive from Vienna, equidistant between Vienna and Budapest.)
According to his own ledger of purchases (‘számadáskönyv’) (pic 8), Fejérváry paid 400 Forint (Hungarian currency, first created in 1325) for the Codex together with an ivory drinking vessel called a Becher.
(Viczay went on to sell other valuable pieces to Fejérváry, including a famous diptych, the Asclepius-Hygieia Diptych [pic 9], which later came to London with the Codex - it reappears in the portrait of Joseph Mayer, [see Part 2]).

It might be logical to assume that the Codex already belonged to the Viczay family at the end of the 18th century. The father of Viczay (Mihály Viczay the elder, 1727-1781) was a famous collector too. It’s quite possible that he or his son bought it in Vienna, and that by the late 18th century the Codex had passed from Austria to Hungary All three of these key countries – Spain, Austria and Hungary - had been ruled for many years by the Habsburg Emperors; what’s more…

‘In this era… in Vienna, there were incredibly numerous [book] auctions from month to month, and they dealt with high numbers of volumes. Deceased high priests and aristocrats, famous collectors, the bankrupt wealthy put their collections on the market. Since Vienna’s growing book market was becoming better and better known, collections from the countryside were brought to the capital, in hopes of getting higher prices... In the second half of the 18th century, a great market for books had developed in that city, with regular auctions, with booksellers who had widespread foreign contacts, where merchants from other cities, such as Leipzig, Nuremberg and Basel, had opened branches or had permanent agents’ (Segesvary 2005: 30, 52).

At all events, following a fall-out between Fejérváry and Brudern, in 1830 the former, a bachelor, moved residence to the house of his brother-in-law Károly Pulszky the elder (1754-1841), the Pulszky family home (Ferenc’s birthplace) on the main square at Eperjes (today known as Presov), capital of Sáros County, transferring his collection there the following year.

PAUSE: what we (don’t) know so far:-
- Who brought the Codex to Vienna and when
- WHEN and how the Viczay family obtained the Codex, almost certainly purchasing it in Vienna (sadly, the family archive was destroyed by fire in the 1956 Revolution)
- Where Fejérváry saw the Codex – possibly in the Viczay castle museum at Hérdervár, though possibly brought by Viczay to Brudern’s ‘Paris-House’ in Pest
+ It was purchased by Fejérváry on 2nd June 1828
+ In 1831 it was taken by Fejérváry from Pest to Eperjes.

But how did it end up in Liverpool?! Time to introduce a new set of key players in the story…
• Edward King, Lord Kingsborough
• William Bullock
• Agostino Aglio
• Obadiah Rich
• Joseph Mayer.
First, Edward King, Viscount Kingsborough (1795-1837) (no known portrait). Kingsborough was an Irish antiquarian, and a wealthy one at that. He kept his extensive library in his castle (Mitchelstown Castle) in County Cork (pic 12).

Probably as an undergraduate at Oxford University (they overlapped by a year), he met and befriended (Sir) Thomas Phillipps, a fanatical bibliophile (beating records of all kinds, he had between fifty and sixty thousand books in his collection at Middle Hill near Broadway, Worcestershire). Phillipps was to pay tribute later to his ‘friend Lord Kingsborough, who I feel it an honour to say may be deemed to have undertaken his grand work of Mexican Antiquities in this house of Middle Hill.

‘For, when he was here, he consulted me about the work, in which I strongly encouraged him, and I gave him his first letter of introduction to Dr. Bandinel of the Bodleian Library, in order to see the Mexican manuscripts there’ (Graham, 1977: 45-46). This appears to contradict the widely held belief that it was Kingsborough’s viewing of the Codex Mendoza in the Bodleian that first sparked his interest in ancient Mexico. At all events, fired by what became his lifelong desire to (collect and) study Mexico’s antiquities, starting with the few known codices, he would go on to assemble and publish the extraordinary, monumental and pioneering work Antiquities of Mexico (9 volumes, 1830-48), which included, in Volume 3, a copy of the Codex Fejérváry-Mayer.

Second, William Bullock (c.1773-1849), a jeweller, naturalist and antiquarian who, in his early twenties, founded a Museum of Natural Curiosities at 24 Lord Street in Liverpool. In 1809 Bullock moved to London and went on to house his vast collection of over 32,000 objects in the newly (1812) built Piccadilly Egyptian Hall – the display proved a phenomenal success with the visiting public. In 1822 he travelled to Mexico, and returned with a treasure trove of artefacts which he put on display in a new exhibition on Ancient Mexico in the Egyptian Hall, which opened in April 1824.

According to Michael Costeloe (2006) Kingsborough was a constant visitor to the exhibition, which would play a further ‘crucial role in the genesis of Antiquities of Mexico’ (Graham 1993: 62).

Third, Agostino Aglio (1777-1857), an Italian painter, printmaker and engraver, who came to England in 1803 at the invitation of architect William Wilkins. From 1814-1820 he lived at 15 Edwardes Square in Kensington...

... and under the guidance of the Royal Horticultural Society he designed the square’s garden (‘one of London’s loveliest’): it was laid out ‘in groups and winding walks, in a manner different from most other squares (An Encyclopaedia of Gardening, 1822, p. 1189). After falling out with Wilkins, Aglio was commissioned to decorate several churches, theatres and country mansions; he was then employed by Bullock to produce promotional lithographs of the Ancient Mexico exhibition.

Aglio went on to produce an enlarged copy of the Codex Boturini (on loan from Mexico for his exhibition). With Bullock’s consent, Kingsborough, having been introduced to Aglio by Bullock, commissioned him to make 100 facsimile copies of the Boturini. By now aware of the presence of other extremely rare Mexican codices in European museum and private collections, Kingsborough commissioned Aglio to travel round Europe making copies of these rare manuscripts, for inclusion in the planned Antiquities of Mexico. Aglio set off in June 1825, heading initially to Paris, returning to London in 1828, with a case full of precious manuscript tracings.

Fourth, Obadiah Rich (1783-1850), an American diplomat and bibliophile who specialised in manuscripts from Latin America. A Harvard graduate hailing from Massachusetts, he travelled as far east as India, and was appointed US consul in Valencia in 1816 and consul in Madrid from 1823 (Knepper 1955: 117). After resigning his diplomatic post in 1826, Rich stayed in Madrid for three more years, dealing in books and manuscripts. He ‘amassed a large collection of rare and curious works’ (ibid).
By 1830 he was working full-time in the book trade in London, based at 12 Red Lion Square. ‘At that time, Rich was the only American established as an important book dealer in London’ (Brownrigg 1978: 13). While in Spain, Rich compiled an extensive collection of ancient Spanish and Latin American books and manuscripts, and was part of the circle of Latin America historians and scholars that included George Ticknor, William H. Prescott (who publicly recommended Rich’s services to his colleagues, and visited his home in Madrid) and Washington Irving. According to Irving’s biographer, Brian Jay Jones (2011) Rich’s residence was ‘a fusion of home, library and museum – a bibliophile’s dream. Rich had one of the finest libraries in Spain’. Rich acted as agent for the Library of Congress, Boston Athenaeum and Harvard College. His English clients included the British Museum as well as Lord Kingsborough. He made Harvard’s Americana collection ‘one of the most complete in the United States’ (Knepper 1955: 121).