Kingsborough’s great work, the most sumptuous yet bestowed upon Mexican archæology, was published between 1830 and 1848, there being an interval of seventeen years between the seventh and eighth volumes. The original intention seems to have embraced ten volumes, for the final section of the ninth volume is signatured as for a tenth.[1114] The work is called: Antiquities of Mexico; comprising facsimiles of Ancient Mexican Paintings and Hieroglyphics, preserved in the Royal Libraries of Paris, Berlin, and Dresden; in the Imperial Library of Vienna; in the Vatican Library; in the Borgian Museum at Rome; in the Library of the Institute of Bologna; and in the Bodleian Library at Oxford; together with the Monuments of New Spain, by M. Dupaix; illustrated by many valuable inedited MSS. With the theory maintained by Kingsborough throughout the work, that the Jews were the first colonizers of the country, we have nothing to do here; but as the earliest and as yet the largest repository of hieroglyphic material, the book needs to be examined. The compiler states where he found his MSS., but he gives nothing of their history, though something more is now known of their descent. Peter Martyr speaks of the number of Mexican MSS. which had in his day been taken to Spain, and Prescott remarks it as strange that not a single one given by Kingsborough was found in that country. There are, however, some to be seen there now.[1115] Comparisons which have been made of Kingsborough’s plates show that they are not inexact; but they almost necessarily lack the validity that the modern photographic processes give to facsimiles.

Kingsborough’s first volume opens with a fac-simile of what is usually called the Codex Mendoza, preserved in the Bodleian. It is, however, a contemporary copy on European paper of an original now lost, which was sent by the Viceroy Mendoza to Charles V. Another copy made part of the Boturini collection, and from this Lorenzana[1116] engraved that portion of it which consists of tribute-rolls. The story told of the fate of the original is, that on its passage to Europe it was captured by a French cruiser and taken to Paris, where it was bought by the chaplain of the English embassy, the antiquary Purchas, who has engraved it.[1117] It was then lost sight of, and if Prescott’s inference is correct it was not the original, but the Bodleian copy, which came into Purchas’ hands.[1118]

Beside the tribute-rolls,[1119] which make one part of it, the MS. covers the civil history of the Mexicans, with a third part on the discipline and economy of the people, which renders it of so much importance in an archæological sense.[1120] The second reproduction in Kingsborough’s first volume is what he calls the Codex Telleriano-Remensis, preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris, and formerly owned by M. Le Tellier.[1121] The rest of this initial volume is made up of facsimiles of Mexican hieroglyphics and paintings, from the Boturini and Selden collections, which last is in the Bodleian.

The second Kingsborough volume opens with a reproduction of the Codex Vaticanus (the explanation[1122] is in volume vi.), which is in the library of the Vatican, and it is known to have been copied in Mexico by Pedro de los Rios in 1566. It is partly historical and partly mythological.[1123] The rest of this volume is made up of facsimiles of other manuscripts,—one given to the Bodleian by Archbishop Laud, others at Bologna,[1124] Vienna,[1125] and Berlin.

The third volume reproduces one belonging to the Borgian Museum at Rome, written on skin, and thought to be a ritual and astrological almanac. This is accompanied by a commentary by Frabega.[1126] Kingsborough gives but a single Maya MS., and this is in his third volume, and stands with him as an Aztec production. This is the Dresden Codex, not very exactly rendered, which is preserved in the royal library in that city, for which it was bought by Götz,[1127] at Vienna, in 1739. Prescott (i. 107) seemed to recognize its difference from the Aztec MSS., without knowing precisely how to class it.[1128] Brasseur de Bourbourg calls it a religious and astrological ritual. It is in two sections, and it is not certain that they belong together. In 1880 it was reproduced at Dresden by polychromatic photography (Chromo-Lichtdruck), as the process is called, under the editing of Dr. E. Förstemann, who in an introduction describes it as composed of thirty-nine oblong sheets folded together like a fan. They are made of the bark of a tree, and covered with varnish. Thirty-five have drawings and hieroglyphics on both sides; the other four on one side only. It is now preserved between glass to prevent handling, and both sides can be examined. Some progress has been made, it is professed, in deciphering its meaning, and it is supposed to contain “records of a mythic, historic, and ritualistic character.”[1129]

Another script in Kingsborough, perhaps a Tezcucan MS., though having some Maya affinities, is the Fejérvary Codex, then preserved in Hungary, and lately owned by Mayer, of Liverpool.[1130]

Three other Maya manuscripts have been brought to light since Kingsborough’s day, to say nothing of three others said to be in private hands, and not described.[1131] Of these, the Codex Troano has been the subject of much study. It is the property of a Madrid gentleman, Don Juan Tro y Ortolano, and the title given to the manuscript has been somewhat fantastically formed from his name by the Abbé Etienne Charles Brasseur de Bourbourg, who was instrumental in its recognition about 1865 or 1866, and who edited a sumptuous two-volume folio edition with chromo-lithographic plates.[1132]

While Léon de Rosny was preparing his Essai sur le déchiffrement de l’Ecriture hiératique (1876), a Maya manuscript was offered to the Bibliothèque Impériale in Paris and declined, because the price demanded was too high. Photographic copies of two of its leaves had been submitted, and one of these is given by Rosny in the Essai (pl. xi.). The Spanish government finally bought the MS., which, because it was supposed to have once belonged to Cortes, is now known as the Codex Cortesianus. Rosny afterwards saw it and studied it in the Museo Archeológico at Madrid, as he makes known in his Doc. Ecrits de la Antiq. Amér., p. 79, where he points out the complementary character of one of its leaves with another of the MS. Troano, showing them to belong together, and gives photographs of the two (pl. v. vi.), as well as of other leaves (pl. 8 and 9). The part of this codex of a calendar character (Tableau des Bacab) is reproduced from Rosny’s plate by Cyrus Thomas[1133] in an essay in the Third Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, together with an attempted restoration of the plate, which is obscure in parts. Finally a small edition (85 copies) of the entire MS. was published at Paris in 1883.[1134]

The last of the Maya MSS. recently brought to light is sometimes cited as the Codex Perezianus, because the paper in which it was wrapped, when recognized in 1859 by Rosny,[1135] bore the name “Perez”; and sometimes designated as Codex Mexicanus, or Manuscrit Yucatèque No. 2, of the National Library at Paris. It was a few years later published as Manuscrit dit Méxicain No. 2 de la Bibliothèque Impériale, photographié par ordre de S. E. M. Duruy, ministre de l’instruction publique (Paris, 1864, in folio, 50 copies). The original is a fragment of eleven leaves, and Brasseur[1136] speaks of it as the most beautiful of all the MSS. in execution, but the one which has suffered the most from time and usage.[1137]

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