Ramírez Codex

The Ramírez Codex (Biblioteca Nacional de Antropología e Historia, MNA 35-100), not to be confused with the Tovar Codex, is a post-conquest codex from the late 16th century entitled Relación del origen de los indios que hábitan esta Nueva España según sus Historias ("An Account of the Origin of the Indians who Inhabit this New Spain according to their Histories"). The manuscript is named after the Mexican scholar José Fernando Ramírez, who discovered it in 1856 in the convent of San Francisco in Mexico City.

Creation and contents

The manuscript was presumably created by the jesuit Juan de Tovar c. 1583–1587 under the auspices of the historian José de Acosta. The manuscript deals with the history of the Aztec since their origins at the legendary location of Aztlan until the Spanish conquest. Besides the text of the Relación, the manuscript contains 32 line drawings which are parallel to those found in the work of Diego Durán, in which the text is probably partly inspired, although diverging in significant ways. It is considered as a draft or earlier version of what would be the Tovar Codex, a later, full color version of the same account prepared by Tovar and send to Spain to Acosta, which is now kept in the John Carter Brown Library in Providence.

The Codex Ramirez comprises three sections or treatises: An Aztec imperial history; a book about deities and their festivals; and a brief account of the native calendar. The most detailed and important section is the first treatise, which chronicles the rise of the Aztec empire and the Spanish conquest. Tovar asserts that his works were prepared with the original information of Aztec informants from Tula; however, historians argue that he also extensively utilized the works of Diego Durán, given the undeniable parallels between both.