Western Europe, France, Paris, ca. 1901 CE. A wonderful French first edition of the "Codex Fejevary-Mayer: Manuscript Mexicain Precolombien des Free Public Museums de Liverpool (M 12014)" published in color by Phillippe Renouard at the expense of Joseph Florimond, the Duke of Loubat (French/American, 1831-1927) in Paris in 1901. The facsimile by H.M. Boisgontier and printed by E. Monrocq is mounted on board and forms a continuous strip folded to form 23 leaves, paged 1-44 (first and last pages blank) and bound in a red leather cover, all accompanied by a 27-page concordance. One of the rare Native American manuscripts to survive the Spanish conquest of Mexico, the Aztec Codex Fejevary-Mayer is a typical Aztec codex dealing with the sacred Aztec calendar ? the tonalpohualli ? and is placed in the Borgia Group. The screen-fold manuscript employs pictographs to guide the user in divination and religious rituals. Size of wooden box: 8" L x 1.25" W x 8.1" H (20.3 cm x 3.2 cm x 20.6 cm); of facsimile page (all the same): 6.75" W x 6.75" H (17.1 cm x 17.1 cm)

Made in central Mexico probably in the early sixteenth century, the Codex Fej?rv?ry-Mayer is a handbook for indigenous religious practitioners. The manuscript is justly famous for its opening temporal and spiritual diagram of the cosmos (p. 1) and its closing pictograph of an almanac arranged around the figure of Tezcatlipoca, the deity of divination and rulership (p. 44). It is named after Gabriel Fej?rv?ry (1780?1851), a Hungarian collector, and Joseph Mayer (1803-1886), an English antiquarian who bought the codex from Fej?rv?ry. In 2004 Maarten Jansen and Gabina Aurora P?rez Jim?nez proposed that it be given the indigenous name Codex Tezcatlipoca, from the Nahuatl name of the god Tezcatlipoca (who is shown, with black-and-yellow facial striping, in the center of its first page), although it is not certain that its creators were Nahuas.

Provenance: private Lumberton, Texas, USA collection, aquired before 2010

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#182849

Fair condition. Some staining, tears, fraying, foxing, and pencil markings from previous owners. Accompanied by leatherbound wooden box with some wear to edges and corners and broken button on strap. Good preservation of colored plates.