Codex Bodley: A Painted Chronicle from the Mixtec Highlands, Mexico

Painted shortly before the Spanish conquest of Mexico in 1521, the Codex Bodley has been long recognized as one of the most important Mixtec manuscripts and a premier example of native Mixtec pictorial historiography in all its complexity. The complete manuscript of the Codex Bodley is offered here for the very first time in a single illustrated volume.

Codex Bodley explores the enormous wealth of information contained in the manuscript, which documents precolonial Mixtec genealogical relationships and historical events spanning from 900 AD to 1521. Maarten Jansen and Gabina Aurora Pérez Jiménez provide insightful and expert commentary on the manuscript, explaining its history as they consider key characteristics of Mixtec pictography. They then provide an engaging and masterful interpretation of the manuscript's narrative, with a detailed explanatory reading of its pictograms and their significance. Accompanied by vivid and colorful illustrations, Codex Bodley is an invaluable text for scholars of precolonial Mexican history, art, and culture.

Maarten Jansen is professor of Mesoamerican archaeology and history at the University of Leiden. Gabina Aurora Pérez Jiménez is a research assistant and teacher of Mixtec at the University of Leiden.