Crónica Mexicayotl
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The Crónica Mexicayotl is a chronicle of the history of the Aztec Empire from the early Nahua migrations to the colonial period, which was written in the Nahuatl language around the 16th century. Its authorship is debated because the earliest surviving copy is written in the hand of Chimalpahin (1579–1660), while the manuscript itself states that the author is Fernando Alvarado Tezozómoc (before 1542 – c. 1610).[1][2] A description of the manuscript is included in the census of central Mexican prose writings in the Handbook of Middle American Indians.[3]
The oldest extant version of the manuscript, written by Chimalpahin, is designated MS374 and was held at the University of Cambridge until 2013. In 2014, it was repatriated by the Mexican National Institute for Archeology and History, and is now on display at the Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City. In the 18th century, a copy of the manuscript was made by Lorenzo Boturini who published it in Tome 4 of his 1746 "Catálogo del museo histórico indiano". In the late 19th century, Boturini's manuscript was copied by father José Pichardo and Antonion León y Gama, whose manuscript is designated (MS 311); this tertiary copy is now held at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris.[2]
In 1949, working from photocopies of the tertiary manuscript MS311, Adrian León translated the Crónica Mexicayotl into Spanish and the National Autonomous University of Mexico published it with the Nahuatl and Spanish text. This version has since been published in several editions, but being based on the tertiary version it contains errors and omissions. In 1997, American ethnohistorians Susan Schroeder and Arthur J. O. Anderson translated the earliest manuscript, MS374, into English and published it as part of their book Codex Chimalpahin. A Spanish translation by Rafael Tena was published in 2013, and a German translation of the same by Berthold Riese was published in 2004.[2]