Espacio de trabajo de Simulink

In contrast with the homogeneity of the handwriting in the text, the illus- trations show a multiplicity of technical solutions and styles, discernible in a diversity of textures, colors, and shapes. Such stylistic and technical variety suggests that a group of painters collaborated on the project.

It is probable that no contemporary manuscript from New Spain pres- ents such diversity of painting techniques. Despite this technical variety, a consistent palette was employed. Most of the colors employed were obtained either by mixing organic colors (dyes or colorants) with gyp- sum and clays, or by employing pure, unmixed dyes. Some colors have a transparent quality, while others are highly opaque. These organically based colorants have a different fluorescence under ultraviolet light from lakes prepared in the European manner, which are dyes precipitated with

alum or other metallic compounds to create an indissoluble composite.18

After preparing a set of European-style lakes to use as references to com- pare with the analytical results from the organically based colorants of the original codex, we found that the lakes had a strong fluorescence, whereas the organic pigments gave an opaque answer to this wavelength. X-ray fluorescence revealed traces of aluminum and potassium in the lakes prepared in the European fashion (fig. 13).

18. Kirby, Spring, and Higgitt, “The Technology of Red Lake Pigment Manufacture,” pp. 71–87.

Fig. 12. De la Cruz–Badiano Codex (top two photos): folios ___ and ___. (Bottom) X-ray fluorescence results for folios 1r–v, 2r–v, 6r, 7r–v, 12r, 23v, 45v, 46v, 60r, 62r–v, and 63r–v, showing the relation of elements found in iron-gall inks: Fe,Ca (iron and calcium); Cu,Zn (copper and zinc); Pb,Fe (lead and iron).

Our research has not yet identified the colorants’ composition. The number of materials used in indigenous dye tradition is very large (as shown by several of the studies in the present volume). We were, however, able to identify the areas in which dyes were used through infrared reflectography and ultraviolet light. Examination by XRF revealed that some colors were mixed with clay, as indicated by the presence of silicon, or gypsum (calcium sulfate), as revealed by the presence of calcium. Other mineral pigments were also identified by this technique: in yellow ochre, there appear metallic elements such as iron; in the ochre and brown pigments, manganese and iron are traceable in manganese dioxide or pyrolusite, a dark iron oxide; arsenic in yellow tones indicates the presence of arsenic trisulfide or orpiment; and white areas show the presence of gypsum used as a pigment (fig. 14).

It is necessary at this point to make some observations regarding the use of orpiment in sixteenth-century Mexican art. This pigment is usually related to the European painting tradition. It is mentioned in treatises, it was used in illuminated manuscripts, and Francisco Pacheco recom-

mended it for the painting of sargas (ephemeral canvases painted with

tempera).19 _{Orpiment was approved by the 1493 Cordoba painters’ ordi-}

nances, but its use on polychrome sculptures was forbidden.20 _{The art}

historian Rocío Bruquetas states that it was widely used in European tem- pera-on-wood panels during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It was extensively used in Venetian painting. It is considered the most common yellow in Titian’s oeuvre. It functions as an oil retardant, but because it is incompatible with copper and lead pigments, it was rarely used in Spanish

paintings of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.21 _{Orpiment has also}

been identified in some Mexican pre-Conquest polychrome objects—for instance, on the stone benches from the “Eagle Warriors Precinct” at the

Templo Mayor, in Tenochtitlan (stage IV, c. 1470).22 _{It is worth noting}

19. In the chapter referred to the painting of sargas, Pacheco recommends cheap pig- ments. He says that yellows can be made of orpiment, and black of ordinary charcoal, and he mentions the use of colorants as well. Pacheco, El arte de la pintura, 1990, pp. 84 and 485.

20. Santos Gómez et al., “Aportaciones de antiguas ordenanzas al estudio,” pp. 266– 285.

21. Bruquetas, Técnicas y materiales de la pintura española, pp. 160–161.

22. Miranda et al., “Pollution effects on stone benches of the Eagle Warriors Precinct,” pp. 611–615.

Fig. 14. De la Cruz–Badiano Codex, folio 38r. X-ray fluorescence chart of mineral pigments and aggregates.

Fig. 13. De la Cruz–Badiano Codex, folio 38r. (Left) Folio 38r under ultraviolet radiation (365 nanometers). (Right) Ultraviolet fluorescence response of laboratory-prepared samples of European-style lakes and organically based colorants, and visible light registers. Ca=calcium, Mn=manganese, Fe=iron, As=arsenic.

american metal technology of the post-Classic period produced a copper

alloy based on arsenic,24 _{so today we can assert that the Mexica had access}

to mines or other sources of metallic ores with arsenic, where orpiment

is found.25 _{Finally, examinations we have performed on four panel paint-}

ings from the second half of the sixteenth century show that the use of

orpiment as a yellow pigment was common in the palette of New Spain.26

Though we have not identified the specific pigments used in the De la Cruz–Badiano Codex, we can be certain that the palette consists mainly of organic colorants—brown, red, green, yellow, blue, purple, pink, and orange (fig. 16). Sometimes the colorants appear to have been mixed with inorganic pigments: calcium sulfate, clays, pyrolusite (for dark umber), yellow ochre, and orpiment. No inorganic red or green pigments appear to have been used. The orange-red pigment minium that was used for the margins was not employed for the illustrations. Copper-based

24. Ruvalcaba, “PIXE Analysis of Pre-Hispanic Items,” pp. 138–140.

25. An orpiment ore is found in the northern state of San Luis Potosí, in the Soledad Mine, in Guadalcázar. See Panczner, Minerals of Mexico, p. 290.

26. Amador et al., “Y hablaron de pintores famosos de Italia,” pp. 78–79.

that the palette employed in the stone benches contained ochre, gypsum, pyrolusite, a blue produced with an organic dye (indigo), and a clay. This combination of materials also appears in the De la Cruz–Badiano Codex (fig. 15).

Other Mesoamerican manuscripts present similar materials. The Cospi Codex has orpiment as a pigment on one side, but organic yellows

on the other.23 _{The yellows from the Columbine Codex (circa thirteenth}

century) were obtained from colorants used without a clay substrate. Since few pre-Columbian manuscripts have been studied with scientific instru- mentation, we cannot be certain, but it is possible that the use of orpi- ment as pigment was part of the pre-Hispanic painting tradition. Meso-

23. An interdisciplinary team from the Dipartimento di Chimica, Università di Perugia, and the Università di Bologna performed a noninvasive spectroscopic investigation on the Cospi Codex, an astrological calendar from the Mixteca-Puebla (c. fifteenth century) painted on animal skin with a gypsum ground. They found differences in the painting technique; on the obverse, three organic yellow pigments were detected by UV-visible fluorescence and mid- infrared[??] Fourier-transform infrared reflectography (FTIR), while on the reverse, orpiment was recognized by micro-Raman spectroscopy. See Sgamellotti et al., “A Spectroscopic Non-Invasive Study.”

Fig. 16. De la Cruz–Badiano Codex, folio 38v. Detail of temahuiztiliquauitl. Note the richness of the painter’s palette.

Fig. 15. De la Cruz–Badiano Codex, folio 38r. Nonochton azcapayxua: detail of the roots painted with orpiment (arsenic trisulfide).

the image is also a text. The internal semantics of the plant names fol- low categorization systems similar to those underlying the component forms that create a given figure. For example, the couaxocotl (literally, “serpent fruit”) on folio 38v is painted with two snakes (couatl) ascending

the branches to bite the fruit (xocotl) (fig. 17).27 _{Yet the correspondence of}

the paintings to the Nahua text is not always so literal. In some cases, the text mentions the plant’s environment, as in the case of the plants on folio 44r: acacazontli, acacapacquilitl, acatl, and tzayanalquilitl (fig. 18). Atl means water; its initial, A, precedes the plant names, and all these plants

grow on the banks of rivers.28 _{Correspondingly, in the codex these plants}

are shown in an aquatic environment, all linked together by their roots.

27. Historian and biologist Emily Walcott Emmart was the first specialist to record, translate, and study the De la Cruz–Badiano Codex. She distinguished the use of the pre- Columbian glyphs stone and water within the illustrations of the codex, and proposed the use of pictographic conventions for the representation of roots. See her annotated edition of the Badianus Manuscript (Codex Barberini, Latin 241) Vatican Library, p. 37.

28. del Paso y Troncoso, La botánica, p. 88.

greens can be identified only as stains on the paper (on folios 18v, 19r, 21v, and 25v)—perhaps caused by an accident in the workshop—but the color was never used for the plant depictions. (The stains appear randomly[?] on the pages.) The essential point of these observations is that, while the painters of the De la Cruz–Badiano Codex had access to pigments com- monly used in the European tradition, which had been used in the text of the codex itself, they chose not to utilize them in their painting.

To better understand the paintings in the De la Cruz–Badiano Codex, we created a database containing the following information for each of the 184 plants depicted in the volume: its Náhuatl name and etymology, the modern scientific species name, and notes regarding botanists’ degree of confidence in the respective identifications upon reviewing the data. We included notes on the individual images’ pictorial qualities (color, vol- ume, contour, line, painting instruments used), along with technical evi- dence (binding of folios into signatures, relations of images to margins and text, etc.), and comparisons between the conventional color photographs and infrared reflectograms of each plant image. We did this because the images are constructed under a Nahua conception according to which

Fig. 17. De la Cruz–Badiano Codex, folio 38v. Detail from the couaxocotl plant. Etymology: couatl=snake; xocotl=fruit.

Fig. 18. De la Cruz–Badiano Codex, folio 44r. Aquatic plants depicted on a river bank.

We noticed some tiny blue drops depicted as flowing from the stems of two plants, neither of which had yet been identified botanically. Accord- ing to Angel María Garibay, the plant name shown on folio 25v, tonatiuh ixiuh ahhuachcho, means something close to “watered herb from the sun” (literally, “sun herb watered”).[??] The other, described as xihuitl tonalco

mochiua hahuachcho on folio 9v,29 _{the same scholar translated as “herb}

that gets watered in the hot season.”30 _{In the Latin description of the ail-}

ment relevant to this plant, the Náhuatl phrase xihuitl tonalco mochiua hahuachcho was inserted, which Garibay interpreted as an error on the part of the scribe or translator who “did not translate the phrase.” Our observation is that the variously transliterated term ahhuachcho/ahuachyo (“watery”) may be part of the plant name, but is referring to a characteris-

tic: the blue drops that signify water or [?] dew.31 _{A similarly poetic image}

occurs in the Florentine Codex, in the prayers to Tezcatlipoca against pestilence, famine, and war (fig. 19). There we read how the god’s anger made pestilence, famine, and war fall into the city like “dew from the stem” (in acatl in ahuachyo or in acatl ahuachyo; “el rocío de la caña” in

Miguel León Portilla’s translation).32

The system of visual representations in the De la Cruz–Badiano Codex, as in other documents of the same period, combined phonetic,

29. Xihuitl tonalco mochiua hahuachcho is Angel María Garibay’s transcription. I thank Tesiu Rosas Xelhuantzi for the Náhuatl etymology corrections to this paragraph and for point- ing out that during the sixteenth century, there was a deficiency in the phonetic represention of the aspirated and glottal consonants in Náhuatl transcription because those sounds did not exist in Spanish. Scribes of the time sometimes addressed this absence by inserting an h, but generally such consonants were ignored. In this case, the variation in placement of the h (at the beginning or in the middle of a word) was due to the inability of the Spanish language to incorporate the aspirated Náhuatl consonant, and not the fault of the Náhuatl–Latin translator. 30. On folio 25v, tonatiuh ixiuh ahuachyo was translated as “hierba aguañosa del sol” (watery herb of the sun, or literally, “sun herb dewy/watery”),[??] based on the etymology tona- tiuh i xihuitl ahuachyo; on folio 9v, xihuitl tonalco mochiua hahuachcho is rendered as “hierba que en el tiempo de calor se hace aguañosa” (herb that becomes watery during the hot season), and the phrase inserted in Náhuatl in the Latin text is xihuitl tonalli co mo chihua ahuachyo. Garibay, “Nombres nahuas en el códice De la Cruz-Badiano, pp. 231–232.

31. “Auacho: cosa que tiene rocio” (Auacho: thing that has dew). Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana (1970).

32. “Tlacatl, Totecuyo, Tloque Nahuaque. Y en verdad se inflaman, disfrutan, se acre- cientan, se regocijan, el palo, la piedra, tu enojo, tu disgusto. De verdad se establece el humo, se establece la quemazón. Los has puesto, junto los has allegado a su lado, sobre el pueblo los has esparcido, los has hecho caer, como el rocío de la caña. Y así les has puesto junto el castigo, el agua helada, las ortigas, los colmillos torcidos,” León-Portilla, “Oraciones a Tezcatlipoca en las pestilencias,” pp. 60–61.

pictographic, alphabetic, and pictorial signs, and many unsolved ques- tions remain about the ways these elements worked together to create

meaning.33 _{In 1886, Francisco del Paso y Troncoso asserted that the}

Nahua taxonomy was based on terms describing the plants’ daily uses. Even though he never saw the De la Cruz–Badiano Codex, his conclu- sions are nonetheless relevant to it. Del Paso found that combinations of prefixes, suffixes, and radicals described the physical properties of the plants, their similarities to other objects, and/or the terrain in which they grew; verbal elements categorized botanical species as wild or cultivated, and as trees, shrubs, or grasses; and sometimes these elements referred

to the plants’ therapeutic properties.34 _{The scholar noted the abundance}

of synonymy—the repetition of a name applied to different species—so he addressed the iconography as a significant descriptive resource. He

regarded Francisco Hernández’s compilation as an iconographic source,35

and suggested that the plant depictions might include figurative, sym- bolic, or syllabic (pictographic) significance, or various combinations thereof.

A given figure, in spite of the significance of the name it is depict- ing, can also be studied as an image in its pictorial role. There are two primary modes of elaboration: one that comes out of pre-Columbian rep- resentational conventions, and another showing more affinity with Euro- pean painting. The technical solutions used to create the images may be analyzed and distinguished. We will use a few examples to demonstrate the differences that become apparent, and the combinations of pictorial modes employed. [??]

Different modes of color use and handling exist side by side. There are areas created with flat and saturated colors, with very defined contour lines, following the Mesoamerican tradition. On the other hand, model- ing and shading may be formed by transparent layering of pigments, or by the gradation of colors through the addition of white or black, as typical in tempera painting. Most common is the simple juxtaposition of contrast-

33. Robertson, Aztec Picture-Writing, pp. 15–144.

34. Del Paso y Troncoso, La botánica, pp. 88–89, 124–125.

35. Francisco del Paso y Troncoso had access to the Historiae naturae maxime peregrinae printed in 1635 by the Jesuit Juan Eusebio Nieremberg (1595–1658), which included copies of the original illustrations of Hernández that were lost during the fire of the Escorial Library in 1671.

Fig. 19. De la Cruz–Badiano Codex, folios 23v and 9v, showing plant stems with ahuachyo, or dew droplets. Also on 9v, a green stain from a copper- based pigment. The lack of margins is evident.

ing colors to indicate volume, without shading. Color was applied with either pens or brushes, with differing effects (fig. 20).

The case of the acamallotetl plant is interesting because it mingles the use of many of the approaches mentioned above (fig. 21). The plant stands on the pictograph for flowing water or a water spring; the base of the sign is painted with a saturated blue pigment, delineated with a darker hue of blue. The lines were formed with an uneven and segmented stroke. The different branches of the flowing water end with symbols of precious- ness, chalchihuite and “shell,” and the firmness of these forms and their red color contrast with the lines of the flow. Above the water symbol, geo- metrical forms overlap to indicate a kind of slab; this signification is also unique. As we have seen, the painters used the pictogram “stone”—here the rhomboidal forms appear to depict a special characteristic of a place or material. The way in which the “slabs” are painted is also different. The illustrator used bright and transparent colors that create an iridescent effect from the superposition of contrasted tones. An intention of shading

is also evident, but the shade is flat; it underlines the whole margin of the geometrical figures with a darker shade of green. The roots of the plant were painted before the slabs, and were partially covered by them. The forms were recuperated with the use of dark blue to emphasize some of their parts. Finally, the trunk of the shrub was painted with a saturated pink that becomes green toward the end of each stem. Using the same hue of bright green, flower buds or rounded fruits crown each of the stems, with the volume of the spherical forms expressed through dark green shadings, and three yellow dots may indicate reflections of light or a characteristic of the fruit-flower. The shading of the trunk was done with dark green paint applied with short strokes of dry pigment on one side of the figure, a solution we have only seen for the painting of “earth” clods, as those depicted on the neighboring plant (coltolzin). Finally, the leaves were painted with transparencies of a very diluted green-blue color. Rep- resentation of the plant was solved as in a miniature, using contrasting colors; the volume of the fruit was achieved with contrast and gradation; and the leaves were painted by overlaying transparent layers. In this man- ner, the painter was able to create a sense of volume in the plant, so that it stands out against the flat Mexica water symbol.

The huizquilitl plant was represented three times in the De la Cruz– Badiano Codex (fig. 22). On folio 8v, the plant is depicted in a painterly manner: the leaves are created with baths of purple and green; the shades are built up by transparent washes. There was no need of a contour line to delimit its silhouette. On folios 32r and 41r, the huizquilitl intertwines the modes of Western painting with shapes from the Mesaomerican tradition. In both cases, the plant was painted using a contour line, and the shades to create volume were built up using transparent washes of black. In folio 6 of the Codex Borbonicus, where the goddess Mayahuel is depicted, another example of the plant bares some resemblance to the illustrations in figure 22, yet the color is applied in a flat and saturated manner, and the contours are perfectly delimited (fig. 23).

Some images in the De la Cruz–Badiano Codex were configured by a synthesis of the principal characteristics of a species; take, for instance, the case of the cypress tree (fig. 24). The leaves were painted as smudges