Lord Kingsborough (1795-1837) and The Antiquities of Mexico (1831-1848)
An introduction to The Antiquities of Mexico (1831-1849), presented in Spanish and English. Made in collaboration with Professor Karina Vázquez and the University of Richmond.
About the Author
Edward King, best known as Lord Kingsborough, was an Irish collector influenced by the spirit of European XVII and XVII centuries antiquarians. Accumulation and possession of manuscripts and documents from other lands and cultures was one of the many proofs of colonial domination. Knowing about the other, or “knowing the other,” was very much a symbolic extension of the imperial power over the colonies.
Antiquities of Mexico, vol. 1 (Codex Mendoza), image 5 (1830/1848) by [Kingsborough, Edward King, viscount]Original Source: Library of Virginia, Rare Book Collection
Libraries and private collections treasured pre- and post- Hispanic documents (Codex) that informed about the history and culture of Mesoamerican civilizations. By the XVIII century, European philology saw in the Mesoamerican codex a resource to probe the idea that pictographic writing was a primitive form that evolved to the alphabetic one.
Antiquities of Mexico, vol. 1, title page (1830/1848) by [Kingsborough, Edward King, viscount]Original Source: Library of Virginia, Rare Book Collection
As some of his contemporaries, Kingsborough was not interested at all in the interpretation of the codex; instead, he was interested in proving with them that Mesoamerican civilizations could be related to the lost tribe of Israel. The fascination for the exotic pushed Kingsborough into a publishing undertaking that left him in debt and, at the end, put him in jail.
About the Book
The Antiquities of Mexico (1831-1849) nine volumes are an underestimated contribution to Mesoamerican studies. To accomplish his ambition, Kingsborough asked the Italian painter Agostino Aglio (Cremona) -already known in England because of his work with architects and in church decoration-, to reproduce the Mesoamerican codex directly from the originals, which were located in libraries and private collections at different European cities.
Antiquities of Mexico, vol. 1, title page (1830/1848) by [Kingsborough, Edward King, viscount]Original Source: Library of Virginia, Rare Book Collection
The nine volumes gather Mayan, Aztec, and Mixtec codex such as the Mendoza Codex and the Matrícula de Tributos, the Laud Codex, and the Selden Codex, all of them at the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford, the Dresden Codex, at the Museum of the Saxon State Library of Dresden, Germany, and the Group Borgia Codex, at the Vatican Library. Among other documents reproduced by Aglio, there is the Kingsborough Codex, a reproduction of the post-Hispanic Tepetlaoztoc Codex, which proves the violent treatment of the Spaniard crown messenger to the native population.
What is a Códice or Codex?
A codex is a Mesoamerican manuscript. It is a pictographic writing that captures and transmits the memories of the communities and towns offering genealogic, religious, astronomic, and tradition knowledge. As such, it offers also information about nature and its resources (food, for example) in different geographical regions.
Antiquities of Mexico, vol. 1 (Codex Boturini), image 2 (1830/1848) by [Kingsborough, Edward King, viscount]Original Source: Library of Virginia, Rare Book Collection
Only near twenty pre-Hispanic codices have survived the Spanish destruction, while there are numerous post-Hispanic codices that have been preserved.
How and Whom?
Códices could be made of amate paper, deerskin, cotton canvas, and maguey fiber. Different colored vegetable dyes were used for writing and painting pictograms and glyphs.
Antiquities of Mexico, vol. 2 (Codex Rios), image 3 (1830/1848) by [Kingsborough, Edward King, viscount]Original Source: Library of Virginia, Rare Book Collection
Codices were created by highly qualified artists, the “tlacuilos”, who devoted themselves almost completely to the elaboration of the manuscripts.
The Project
The Mesoamerican Códices’ beauty is unique. In pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican societies, the codices were an active sensorial means to communicate the values and traditions that are at the base of collective identities. The codices evoke memories, smells, textures, and flavors of a world in a dynamic way because their articulation as parts of a more complex and wide social and cultural entity.
Antiquities of Mexico, vol. 1 (Codex Mendoza), image 10 (1830/1848) by [Kingsborough, Edward King, viscount]Original Source: Library of Virginia, Rare Book Collection
The Library of Virginia Special Collections' "The Antiquities of México" is complete and in excellent shape. This Google Art & Culture project realized by students from the class LAIS301 Spanish in the Community at the University of Richmond, has as main goal to offer users a first approach in a bilingual format to a corpus of works (the codices) that has already been the subject of extensive specialized academic research.
Antiquities of Mexico, vol. 2 (Codex Rios), image 12 (1830/1848) by [Kingsborough, Edward King, viscount]Original Source: Library of Virginia, Rare Book Collection
This is only an initial reading/gaze that results from the first aesthetic encounter with the códices. What do these images invite us to think? What icons do we recognize in the códices? What questions can we grasp after looking at them? In one sense, this project goes beyond recognizing the limits of Kingsborough ambitious enterprise: By making its images/reproductions accessible to the public, we aim to engage in a spontaneous dialogue about the past and the present.
Text by Karina Elizabeth Vázquez, PhD,
Director of Spanish Community-Based Learning Program, Dept. of Latin American, Latino, and Iberian Studies, University of Richmond.
Editing and arrangement by Sonya Coleman, Digital Collections Specialist.
Images from the Library of Virginia Special Collections.
