Codex Escalada - Description

Description

The document is not a codex as the term is generally understood, but a single sheet of parchment (approximately 13.3 by 20 cms, or 5¼ x 8 inches) prepared from what is probably deerskin. In Mesoamerican studies, the word "codex" is applied to every type of pictorial manuscript, irrespective of form, executed in the indigenous tradition. The codex Escalada bears several significant creases both lengthwise and laterally, and the edges are abraded which, together with a deep yellowish patina, impedes a clear reading of it; however, the main features can be distinguished. The principal image comprises a rocky landscape dotted with sparse scrub flanked on the left by an Indian kneeling at the foot of a mountain and facing in three-quarter profile across the plain towards the Virgin who, in turn, flanks the landscape on the right. She is is contained within a nebulous mandorla, and at her feet are traces of what seems to be a horned moon. This depicts the apparition which is said to have occurred on 12 December 1531 on the hill of Tepeyac located six kilometers (four miles) north of the main plaza of Mexico City. The sun is rising over the hills behind the Virgin. Above the central landscape is the date "1548" beneath which are four lines of Nahuatl text written in the Latin alphabet which can be translated as:- "In this year of 1531 there appeared to Cuauhtlatoatzin our dearly beloved mother Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico". Below the landscape and a little off-centre to the right, is the imposing signature of Fray Bernardino de Sahagún (ca. 1499-1590), the renowned Franciscan missionary, historian and pioneering ethnologist. High in the cliffs above the kneeling Indian is a much smaller depiction of a man on the hill. Directly beneath the kneeling Indian is more Nahuatl text written in the Latin alphabet, the first part of which can be translated as:- "Cuauhtlatoatzin died a worthy death"; and the second as:- "in 1548 Cuauhtlatoatzin died." From other sources, this is known to be the native name of Juan Diego, although the normal orthography for the mid-16th century is "Quauhtlahtoatzin". It is these last details which have led the parchment to be regarded as a type of "death certificate" of Juan Diego.

The right margin of the parchment constitutes a distinct register of images. The top half is a continuation of the landscape, below which is an indistinct rectilinear image. Below that again, and in the extreme right-hand corner, is a left-facing pictogram in the indigenous style of a man brandishing an upright staff while seated on a ceremonial chair. The chair is surmounted by a glyph depicting the head of a bird from which streams flow. Beneath this pictogram are the words "juez anton vareliano " taken to be a reference to Antonio Valeriano (ca. 1525-1605). Valeriano was juez-gobernador (or judge-governor) of his home town of Azcapotzalco from 1565 to 1573, and of San Juan Tenochtítlan thereafter, and he had been a pupil and later associate of Sahagún in the compilation of an encyclopedic account of Nahua life and culture before the Spanish conquest assembled between approximately 1540 and 1585 and known most famously through the Florentine Codex.

The pictogram of Valeriano is very close to one of him extant on the Aubin Codex in the British Museum, which probably dates from 1576 hence its alternative name of "manuscrito de 1576". The purpose and function of Sahagún's signature and of the Valeriano pictogram remain uncertain.