Frontispiece of the Codex of Mendoza

Form

Spanish influenced art

COdex: Handmade manuscript or book

Frontispiece: an illustration facing the title page of a book

Annotated in Spanish

Artist illustrated with indigenous style

Flat scenes of space, negative space, no recession (no foreground middle back), no modeling, stylized in simple figures, use native writing, use hierarchy of scale (Aztecs are bigger)

Function

First victory of Spain, and this was commissioned to record the information about the Aztec empire to study the history of the region

Supposed to be a gift to Charles the Fifth and show him the empire he claimed

Content

Book contains chronological history of Aztecs in Mexico

Describes everyday lives from birth to death

Book formatted to have European influence (clear linear organization, clear from beginning to end)

Had an Aztec influence which described the settlement of Tenochtitlan and the Aztec conquest

Showed everything on the same page

Context

According to the Aztec myth, the patron deity Huitzilopochtli telling them to go and search for an eagle with a cactus underneath it and live there

New Spain established in 1519-1521

When the book was being sent to Spain, the French pirates stole the Codex and sold it and eventually it was passed around

French who stole it wrote their names on it trying to claim it as their own