Window Into a Lost World

What can the Codex Mendoza tell us about Aztec culture?

In 1541, Don Antonio de Mendoza, a Spanish viceroy in Mexico, commissioned some native artists to record the cultural habits of the history of the Aztec people. It had been twenty years since Hernan Cortes had toppled the Aztec ruler and taken his great capital, Tenochtitlan, for Spain.

Not much is known about the circumstances under which Mendoza emplo…