Table of Contents

• 1. Telleth of those who founded commerce in Mexico and Tlatilulco
• 2. Here is told how the merchants began their office, in which they were considered [and] honored as principal [merchants]
• 3. Telleth of the offerings which the merchants made when they were going to set out somewhere
• 4. Telleth what the merchants did when they reached where they were going
• 5. Telleth how the merchants were given the name of disguised merchants
• 6. Telleth how the merchants made offerings when they reached their homes, whence they had gone, called the washing of feet
• 7. Telleth how these merchants at that time held a banquet
• 8. Telleth how he who held the banquet performed the act of offering, to pay the debt [to the gods]
• 9. Telleth what they did when it was about to dawn, and what they did when the sun arose
• 10. Here is told of still another feast celebration (which was called "the bathing")
• 11. Here is told what was done when the holding of a feast was determined
• 12. Here is told what the one who determined the holding of a feast prepared in his city
• 13. Here is told how they began the feast and what was then done
• 14. Here is told how they slew the slaves at the time that they observed the feast day
• 15. Here are mentioned all the makers of fine ornaments called master craftsmen: the gold workers and lapidaries
• 16. Here is told how the craftsmen who cast precious metals fashioned their wares
• 17. Here are discussed the lapidaries who worked precious stones
• 18. Here are mentioned the inhabitants of Amantlan, ornamenters who worked precious feathers and many other kinds of feathers
• 19. Here is told how the inhabitants of Amantlan, ornamenters who made feathers articles, celebrated a feast day to their gods
• 20. Telleth the manner in which these inhabitants of Amantlan, the ornamenters, worked feathers for adornment
• 21. Here is told how those of Amantlan, the ornamenters, performed their task

About the Author

Charles E. Dibble (1909-2002) was an anthropologist, linguist, and scholar specializing in Mesoamerican cultures. He received his master's and doctorate degrees from the Universidad Nacional Aut�nomo de M�xico and taught at the University of Utah from 1939-1978, where he became a Distinguished Professor of Anthropology.

Arthur J. O. Anderson (1907-1996) was an anthropologist specializing in Aztec culture and language. He received his MA from Claremont College and his PhD in anthropology from the University of Southern California. He was a curator of history and director of publications at the Museum of New Mexico in Santa Fe and taught at a number of institutions, including San Diego State University, from which he retired.

For their work on the Florentine Codex, both Dibble and Anderson received the Mexican Order of the Aztec Eagle, the highest honor of the Mexican government; from the King of Spain the received the Order of Isabella the Catholic (Orden de Isabel la Cat�lica) and the title of Commander (Comendador).

Reviews

"A great scholarly enterprise."--New Mexico Historical Review


"Bringing the knowledge of modern scholarship to bear on their materials, the translators have been able to illuminate many obscurities in the text. The complete series of volumes is a landmark of scholarly achievement."--The New Mexican


"Highly recommended for all academic and large public libraries."--Choice


"Sahag�n emerges as the indisputable founder of ethnographic science. The accomplishments of the joint translators, Dibble and Anderson, will surely rank among the greatest achievements of American ethnohistorical scholarship."--Natural History


"This publication of Sahag�n makes available to scholars and their students alike the original Nahuatl text for comparison with the more easily accessible Spanish text, which is in many places merely an abridgment or pr�cis of the original. A whole series of native sources for the study of Mexican pre-conquest history is now at hand for a field of historical study formerly restricted to a small number of investigators. A whole chapter of the cultural history of early Colonial Mexico is unfolding before us. [The Codex is] an impressive monument to Spanish humanism in the sixteenth-century New World."--The Hispanic American Historical Review