SEONAID VALIANT

The Ancient Mexican Codex: Zelia
Nuttall’s Recontextualization of
the Codex Tonindeye

“It was during an informal reception at Casa Villari in Florence, some
years ago, that I first learned of the existence of the Ancient Mexican
Codex, the facsimile of which I now have the pleasure of presenting
to the literary and scientific world.”
“I obtained permission, not only to study, but also to publish the valuable
document, in order to place it within the reach of my fellow-students.”
— Zelia Nuttall, 1902

Abstract

seonaid valiant, the Curator for
Latin American Studies for the Arizona State University Library, holds a
Ph.D. in Latin American History from
the University of Chicago. Her book,
Ornamental Nationalism: Archaeology
and Antiquities in Mexico, 1876–1911
(Brill, 2018) examines international
debates over the meaning of Indigenous symbols and the professionalization of archaeology in Mexico at
the turn of the twentieth century. Her
current research project is a biography
of the anthropologist and codex
scholar Zelia Nuttall (1857–1933), who
helped to set the standards for modern
archives and anthropology.

The Mixtec pictorial manuscript, now known as the Codex Tonindeye,
was stolen from an Italian monastery library in 1859. Several decades
later, the Mexican American anthropologist Zelia Nuttall located the
document after many years of searching. Determined to reinstate its
historical identity, Nuttall closely studied the codex and reproduced it
in a lush facsimile; it was named the Codex Nuttall (1902) in her honor.
Using Nuttall’s correspondence with her publishers at the Peabody
Museum, this article investigates the role of archives and museums in
nineteenth-century textual scholarship, explores how Nuttall relocated
the codex and labored over creating the facsimile, and addresses the
ongoing importance of the document.

Introduction
In 1859, a pre-Columbian Mixtec pictorial manuscript was stolen from
an archive in the Italian monastery of San Marco in Florence. In the
late 1890s, the Mexican American anthropologist Zelia Nuttall traced
that codex to the British Museum, studied it, and published a facsimile
known as the Codex Nuttall. The story of how the Mixtec manuscript
| 29

in question—now known as the Codex Tonindeye, but described by
Nuttall as the Ancient Mexican Codex, and also called the Codex
San Marco or Codex Zouche—was uncovered and disseminated to
the broader scholarly community provides insight into the history
of archives, the professionalization of anthropology, and the shifting
status of pre-Colombian manuscripts. By drawing on Nuttall’s correspondence held at the Peabody Museum, this article explores the role
of institutional archives and museums in the nineteenth century, and
details how Nuttall traced the codex through her personal connections,
her efforts to publish it, and the effect of its publication.1
Most extant Indigenous pictorial manuscripts are housed in European archives, where they typically were placed after being received
as diplomatic gifts during the era of Spanish exploration and colonialism. Few of these manuscripts have been returned to Mexico.2 In the
intervening years, many of these documents were mislaid or forgotten
in the archives. Throughout the early modern and modern periods,
European and Mexican archives were not well organized or cataloged
systematically, and the caretakers often would lose sight of even the
most valuable items. Occasionally, there were no caretakers, and items
disappeared from unprotected archives. Furthermore, people who had
access to archives often pilfered them, and documents thus would enter
into private collections.3 Scholars such as Zelia Nuttall who sought
manuscripts from Mexico often had to trace their locations through
word of mouth.
The Mixtec manuscript under discussion has been transferred to a
minimum of six locations since its creation in Mexico more than 500
years ago. Each relocation took it farther from the people who created
it and its intended readers. Before locating and publishing the codex
that would bear her name, Nuttall spent time closely studying many
related codices, which she termed “sister codices,” so when she finally
located the Mixtec manuscript, she was prepared to contextualize,
interpret, and share it.4 The document had been gifted, stolen, and
misplaced, and Nuttall felt the need to recontextualize it by creating
a facsimile representative of the lush visual and narrative elements in
the original document. Her purpose in creating a meticulously accurate
reproduction of the document was to provide access to its pictorial
impact, which she knew was inseparable from its meaning. The power
and significance of the codex relies on a sensory encounter with its rich
colors, vivid imagery, and the tactile experience of unfolding its pages.
In the introduction she provided to accompany the facsimile, Nuttall
hoped to promulgate an understanding of the history of American
cultures before contact with Europe and argue for their continued
importance.
30 | printing history

Brief Biography of Zelia Nuttall

Figure 1: Zelia Nuttall, circa 1877.
Frederick Starr Papers. Courtesy of
the Hanna Holborn Gray Special
Collections Research Center,
University of Chicago.

Zelia Nuttall was an amateur scholar who traveled the world in search
of pre-Columbian books from Mexico to study and publish as facsimiles. She was born to Robert Nuttall, an adventurous Irish doctor,
and Magdalena Parrott. Parrott had been born in Mexico to an unwed
mother; her father, however, was the famous San Francisco banker John
Parrott.5 Parrott took Magdalena to the United States, where she met
and married Robert Nuttall after graduating from finishing school.
The couple settled in San Francisco, where their daughter Zelia was
born in 1857.
During Nuttall’s adolescence, her family traveled to Europe, where
Zelia gained an education in seven languages while living in France,
Germany, Italy, and England (Figure 1). She took classes at Bedford
College in London, where she developed a particular interest in history,
before returning to San Francisco.6
Nuttall married a man whose interest in the past paralleled her own.
In 1880, she wed Alphonse Pinart, a French linguist who collected
artifacts and books from Indigenous peoples in the Pacific Northwest
and Mexico. Pinart had built his reputation by collecting Aleutian
masks in Alaska and Aztec sculptures in Mexico, which he then sold
to the Trocadéro in France.7
Marriage to Pinart deepened Nuttall’s interest in Indigenous culture. Within several years, however, Pinart had spent almost all of
the couple’s combined inheritances on manuscripts, books, and artifacts—surely a contributing factor when Nuttall chose to leave him
permanently in 1882. Pregnant at the time, Nuttall wrote to Pinart,
then stationed in Panama, and told him that there was no need for
him to return to San Francisco. Their only child, Nadine, was born in
1882. Due to Pinart’s stubborn resistance and the complex regulations
about divorce in France, it was six years later, in 1888, before Nuttall
won a divorce and full custody of her child.8
It was at this point that Nuttall stopped signing her correspondence
as Zelia Nuttall Pinart and reverted to her birth name, Zelia Nuttall.9
To cement this identity, Nuttall also sued for the right to return to
her maiden name and then began insisting that people refer to her
as “Mrs. Nuttall,” a title she felt conveyed a proper degree of respect.
The oddity of the self-determined title confused many people, and
Nuttall often had to correct proofs that identified the author as “Miss
Nuttall” instead of “Mrs. Nuttall.”10 Nuttall’s insistence on using this
title is a keen demonstration of what her adversaries would characterize as her stubbornness; it can also be seen as an indication of her
Zelia Nuttall and the Tonindeye Codex | 31

uncompromising commitment to defining herself on her own terms,
thus defying cultural expectations.
Nuttall’s scholarship began in earnest after she separated from her
husband. In 1884, she moved to Dresden and then began to travel
around the world. In 1886, she traveled to Mexico with several family
members and spent six months at the National Museum studying Aztec
artifacts. Until Nuttall purchased a house in Mexico, in 1902, she was
without a permanent home of her own; in the interim, she relied on
friends, relatives, hotels, and apartments and houses rented for short
periods to house herself, her daughter, and her mother. Despite her
complaints about the exhaustion and various illnesses caused by the
stress of her homelessness, Nuttall continued to work productively
throughout this eight-year period. It was possibly the lack of a permanent home that gave her the freedom to travel to Mexico, Spain, Italy,
Sweden, the United States, and Germany for extended periods of time
in search of codices.

Nuttall’s Publications
Nuttall was instrumental in publishing numerous pre-Columbian and
colonial codices between 1886 and 1933. She also assisted in founding
the University of California and collected items on behalf of the university’s anthropology museum, including codices. Nuttall’s engagement in international debates with scholars, particularly through her
involvement in the International Congress of Americanists, forced
those scholars to set standards for anthropological practices and highlighted the lack of archival standards in Mexico and Europe in the early
twentieth century.11
Nuttall had ambitions to find and publish all of the pre-Columbian
codices that remained to be found in both European and Mexican
archives. She heard about codices by word of mouth through talking
with scholars, church officials, archivists, and curators in Mexico, Germany, Spain, Italy, and England. She looked at published catalogs from
archives and museums and, most important, she browsed through the
archives.
The professionalization of archives trailed decades behind that of
anthropology and history as academic fields. As historians have shown,
many individuals from around the world—including collectors, antiquarians, art dealers, and scholars—rifled through both European and
Mexican archives with little supervision and few consequences for
sometimes absconding with what they found.12 As a result, thousands
of documents from the Mexican church and government archives
32 | printing history

currently are housed in special collections libraries and private collections across Europe and the United States.
At that time, access to archives chiefly depended on personal connections and social status rather than academic credentials; only those
scholars who also moved within certain social circles were commonly
allowed in. Nuttall’s family connections in Mexico and Europe helped
in this situation. Within Mexico, Nuttall’s complex identity was beneficial to her scholarship; she was regarded as a Mexican but also as
someone with deep connections in the United States, which at the
time allowed her to wield a certain degree of authority. Moreover,
her British schooling meant that she was sometimes mistaken for an
Englishwoman.
Nuttall’s research required her to travel to Madrid, Florence, and
London, where she not only studied codices but also sought benefactors
who could underwrite their publication. Nuttall’s work with manuscripts was only one aspect of her broader anthropological project,
which extended to archaeological work in the field in Mexico and
curatorial work with artifacts in museums—and all of these ambitious projects required financial backing. To that end, Nuttall reached
out to benefactors such as Frederick Ward Putnam, Charles Pickering
Bowditch, and Phoebe Hearst in an effort to fund the purchase of
codices and their subsequent publication as facsimiles, and to support
her archaeological excavations.
Nuttall’s correspondence shows that she faced competition from
other scholars interested in publishing the same materials, in addition
to financial challenges and frustrations with her main publisher. These
challenges were exacerbated by her status as a female scholar whose
relationship to academic and scholarly institutions was often ambiguous. Nuttall was not employed by any institution, but she did enjoy
a supportive, if ill-defined, relationship with the Peabody Museum in
Cambridge, which gave her the title of Honorary Assistant in Mexican
Archaeology; this title allowed her entry into a world of scholarship
that normally would have been inaccessible to amateurs (or perhaps
even to other women scholars).13 For a researcher with some college
training but no serious academic experience other than that acquired
through her own scholarship, this relationship was a beneficial one that
she was able to maintain for several decades. However, as the fields of
archaeology and anthropology professionalized, holding an advanced
degree gained in importance, and the Peabody Museum eventually
began providing Nuttall with less funding and support.
Nuttall characterized her motivation for seeking out pre-Columbian
writings in these archives as altruistic, and she often asserted that she
conducted this work purely in the interest of science. Not content to
Zelia Nuttall and the Tonindeye Codex | 33

simply uncover these neglected manuscripts, however, she also sought
to share these materials through publication. Over the course of her
career, Nuttall was involved in publishing the Codex Nuttall, the Codex
Magliabechiano, and several primary sources related to Sir Francis
Drake. She also attempted to publish the manuscript now known as
the Florentine Codex but was never able to complete this work. Despite
a few great successes, Nuttall was often frustrated by the laborious
and protracted process of working with the Peabody Museum to print
facsimiles and other essays.
Of particular importance, the Peabody did not publish Nuttall’s
work on the Mexican Calendar System, which she believed would be
her masterpiece, despite producing several iterations of proofs. Nuttall
sent multiple drafts to her supporter and publisher, Frederick Ward
Putnam, which included numerous complex charts and illustrations;
however, after a number of years, the museum finally abandoned the
project.14 Nuttall managed to salvage part of the work and in 1894
published it as a lengthy article in the Congress of Americanists volume
that followed its conference in Stockholm.15

Description of the Codex
The Mixtec manuscript from Mexico, formerly known as the Codex San
Marco and now called the Codex Tonindeye, was created before contact
with Europeans. It was removed from its original context and audience
and sent to Europe at an unknown date, which is generally assumed
to have been during the colonial period. The original manuscript was
created between 1200 and 1521 by the Mixtec people. The screen-fold
manuscript is painted on deer skin and has forty-seven leaves. It measures 19 cm by 113.50 cm. Painted on gesso on both sides, the document
tells the history of the Mixtec ruler Eight Deer Jaguar-Claw and that
of the Mixtec region.16 The artist is unknown, but it is evident that
this pictorial manuscript was executed as a practice piece. Faint erasures reveal areas where the scribe corrected earlier mistakes, and the
document is unfinished.17
It may have been because the document was not finalized that it was
deemed suitable to serve as a gift from Mixtec leaders to the Spanish,
although the circumstances of its acquisition are only conjectural. Also
unknown are the specifics of how the codex was shipped, where it was
sent, or who was meant to receive it, although Nuttall speculated that
Dominican friars originally sent this document and one other pictorial manuscript to Europe; they were lost in a raid on the ship.18 In
any case, it was almost certainly the Spanish who sent the material to
Europe. We do not know how the document arrived at the archive at
34 | printing history

San Marco or how long it was there before it was stolen.19 Documents
are often traced via library stamps and book plates, but in this case,
no previous owner marked the book. Once Nuttall had identified the
manuscript, however, she was able to piece together the way in which
the document left the archive of San Marco and was eventually deposited in the British Museum.

Codex Nuttall
When Mexican documents in European archives were brought to light,
they often received new titles. Formerly, they were named in honor
of the people that had first received them, but in the late nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries, they were named in honor of the people
who studied and published them, or were given names derived from
the archives that held them.20 At this time, the role of the Mexican
documents changed. They had once been considered gifts or legal
documents, whereas during this period, they became objects of study
that would provide a window into life in the pre-Colombian and early
colonial eras. Scholars used these documents to support new interpretations informed by emerging academic fields, such as anthropology and
history. In doing so, they increased the pressure on archives to organize
and professionalize to keep pace with the needs of these emerging
scholarly disciplines, although most archives were slow to evolve and
adapt to the changing demands.
Indicative of its complicated history, the Mixtec codex was known
by many different names at different times. Nuttall referred to it as the
Ancient Mexican Codex. It was also known as the Codex San Marco, then
the Codex Zouche, and still later was called the Codex Nuttall or Codex
Zouche-Nuttall. In 2004, the scholars Maarten Jansen and Gabina
Aurora Pérez Jiménez suggested that, insofar as multiple histories are
recorded on both sides of the manuscript, it should be given a name
reflective of its original purpose. They wrote, “Because of its composite
character, we call this pictorial manuscript Codex Tonindeye after the
Dzaha Dzaui term for ‘lineage history’.”21 Laura Osorio Sunnucks from
the British Museum has said that the museum was persuaded by this
argument and adopted the name “Tonindeye” as a way of reconnecting
the codex to the community from which it originated. The new name
honors the origins of the Codex Tonindeye and indicates that it is both
a chronicle and a genealogy.22
Nuttall first heard about the codex that in many ways would define
her career in 1890, at a reception in Florence. During a discussion with
Pasquale Villari (a family friend, professor, and historian, who was also
a senator and former Minister of Public Instruction), Nuttall learned
Zelia Nuttall and the Tonindeye Codex | 35

that in the mid-nineteenth century he had seen “an Ancient Mexican
Codex” in the Library of the Monastery of San Marco in Florence.23
Villari told Nuttall that the document had confounded the monks at
the monastery and, when they consulted the Propaganda Fide in Rome,
they were told “the document was probably intended for the amusement of children, but was so foolish that it could only bore them.”24
However, Villari’s description of Spanish inscriptions on both the document and its case struck Nuttall as being similar to those found on
the Codex Becker, which led her to suspect that this document could
be an unknown Mexican manuscript.25
In 1859, when the monastery archive at San Marco was converted
into a public library, many documents went astray. When Villari
returned to the archive, he was told that the manuscript had vanished.26
Nuttall was not able to locate the codex in any of the archives in Italy
in which she was sporadically working.27 She and Villari eventually
found it by keeping their ears attuned to gossip about the black market,
learning that the codex had been secretly sold from the monastery of
San Marco, despite Italian policies forbidding such documents being
sold to private individuals.
Nuttall and Villari learned that the San Marco codex was sold to
an English collector, John Temple Leader, who was then living in
Italy. Leader then gave the document as a gift to Robert Curzon, Lord
Zouche, in England. In anticipation of receiving the manuscript, Lord
Zouche wrote to Leader that he would smuggle the book out of Italy
with the assistance of various English lords. Lord Zouche referred to
the book as a “he” and instructed Leader to “pack him up in swaddling
clothes of water proof stuff and tell him to be quiet, and not to quarrel
with the other dispatches in the bag.”28 Lord Zouche considered the
manuscript to be incomprehensible and also representative of the “horrible Aztec image.”29 Nonetheless, he stated that it would become the
glory of his library, and he hoped to make a facsimile of it so scholars
could eventually decipher it. Many years later, in July 1890, Leader
wrote to an acquaintance explaining that he had been trying to acquire
the manuscript since 1854 but had not managed to do so until 1859.30
In 1873, Lord Zouche died without having arranged for the publication of a facsimile. His son, Sir Robert Curzon, the 15th Baron
Zouche, was not interested in his father’s library. Much of it, including
the codex from San Marco, was loaned for an indefinite period to
the British Museum. The manuscript was officially donated to the
museum in 1917.31
Conveniently, Nuttall happened to be friends with the curator
responsible for the care of the piece, Sir Edward Thompson, a noted
paleographer who was then the director and head librarian at the
36 | printing history

museum. She was able to persuade him to temporarily transfer the
codex to the Bodleian Library in Oxford, where she was allowed to
work closely with the manuscript throughout 1898 and 1899.
It was in June 1898, at the British Museum, that the long sought for
Codex was finally laid into my hands, for inspection, by its custodian,
Sir Edward Maunde Thompson. As I eagerly scanned its pages, I found
that, whereas the explanatory notes did not fulfil my hopes and expectations, the Codex itself far surpassed them. I soon realized that it was the
most superb example of an Ancient Mexican historical manuscript I had
ever seen, which, in wealth of detail and interest even excelled its sister,
the Vienna Codex … In order to afford me the desired opportunity
of studying it during my stay in Oxford, the Codex was subsequently
transferred, temporarily, to the Bodleian Library and deposited there
for my particular use. 32

Nuttall found that the visual elements exceeded her expectations.
She paid particular attention to variations in the shades of paint, which
she would later seek to reproduce:
The surfaces of both sides of the skin are covered with a thick layer
of a white substance which presents a smooth, slightly glazed surface.
On this, the artist first drew the outlines of his figures in black, and
subsequently filled these in with color. A careful study of the original
reveals that the artist prepared small quantities of each color at a time,
and that he did not always succeed in obtaining exactly the same shade
twice. The scheme of color on the obverse is, moreover, different from
that on the reverse, which presents a greater profusion of detail. The
paints employed were so fine and skillfully prepared, that for nearly
four centuries they have preserved, undimmed, their exquisite beauty
and delicacy.33

While Nuttall was in London examining the codex, Charles Pickering Bowditch, an American financier who was a generous benefactor
for the Peabody Museum, was also there; he had an opportunity to
visit Nuttall while she was working on the manuscript.34 This viewing
ignited Bowditch’s desire to have the document published as a facsimile, and he volunteered funding for the project through the Peabody
Museum. Nuttall, in turn, “offered to assume the responsibility and
work of carrying out the publication.”35
Bowditch suggested that the Codex Zouche, as it was then known,
should be renamed after Nuttall on publication.36 This act of renaming
the codex after a scholar, rather than after a collector or library, can be
seen as indicative of the recontextualization of these manuscripts as
objects of scholarly attention at a time when interpreting Indigenous
Zelia Nuttall and the Tonindeye Codex | 37

history was becoming the province of scientists rather than antiquarians. Nuttall knew, however, that it could potentially be controversial
to alter the name of the document and that the new Lord Zouche
might well not be in favor of it. However, when asked whether he
objected to renaming the codex after Nuttall, Zouche willingly gave
his consent. Nuttall was relieved that Zouche did not seem to mind
that the book was being renamed after her, but others apparently
did; in one of her letters, Nuttall told Putnam that Charles Hercules
Read, the British Museum’s Keeper of the Department of British and
Mediaeval Antiquities and Ethnography, was opposed to the idea,
but she dismissed him as “not very bright.”37 When the facsimile was
published, Putnam entered a note before the introduction explaining
why the Peabody Museum had decided to name the facsimile after
Nuttall, “As an acknowledgment of Mrs. Zelia Nuttall’s indefatigable
researches, one of the results of which has been the discovery of the
long lost manuscript here published in facsimile, and in recognition of
her high attainments in Mexican Archaeology, the Peabody Museum
of American Archaeology and Ethnology has given to this ancient
Mexican book the name of Codex Nuttall.”38
At the same time, an effort was made to name another document
after Nuttall. While Nuttall was studying the Mixtec codex, she
received a letter from Francisco del Paso y Troncoso, the Director of
the National Museum in Mexico. He was in Florence studying the Florentine Codex by Bernardino de Sahagun, which he offered to rename
after her. She declined the offer because she knew that the codex at the
British Museum was to be named after her; however, she was secretive
about revealing what document she had located. She was wary of telling
Paso y Troncoso of her discovery because she feared that he or someone
else would try to step in and publish the codex themselves. It was not
common knowledge that the Mixtec codex was in the British Museum;
the museum had not publicized the acquisition, particularly because of
the dubious legality of the circumstances through which Zouche had
originally acquired the codex.39 Those circumstances did not become
public until Nuttall published the facsimile and her accompanying
introduction.

Handcrafting the Facsimile
In a series of letters, Nuttall updated Bowditch and Putnam on the
details of printing the facsimile and related expenses. In August 1899,
Nuttall wrote to Putnam that she had acquired all of the necessary
guarantees to reproduce the codex. Nuttall, Bowditch, and Sir Edward
Thompson all would need to approve the final proofs.40 Nuttall found
38 | printing history

her ideal printer in Gilbert Whitehead in London. She had great faith
in Whitehead’s abilities because he did everything by hand. As she
told Bowditch, “I am confident that no pains or skill will be spared
to make the colours perfectly correct.” Whitehead’s artist traced the
original codex rather than photographing it; this approach pleased Nuttall, who believed that photography was an inferior means of textual
reproduction because it created shadows. Nuttall wrote, “Whitehead
has so completely grasped the matter as we would [and is] so deeply
interested and keen about obtaining a perfect facsimile that I think we
can feel at ease about his success.” The original contract states that the
printer, Gilbert Whitehead and Co., would produce 500 copies of all
of the plates by the middle of 1899, and Nuttall hoped the book could
be released by Christmas 1899.41 Her estimate was optimistic; Adolar
Röhl, the binder that Nuttall found in Germany, actually received the
proofs two years later, in May 1901.42
Nuttall stayed in England and took the lead in supervising the reproduction, lavishing enormous attention on every detail of the printing.
When Bowditch and the Peabody Museum had any objections to the
colored reproductions, for example, Nuttall would go to London herself to make certain that any issues were resolved. She satisfied herself
that the paper was the right texture and color, and that the images were
matte and not glazed. She received a full set of test proofs and spent
three days reviewing the outlining and coloring before declaring she
was satisfied with them.43 Receiving official sets of proofs ten months
later, she wrote to Bowditch excitedly, “I hasten to send them to express
my delight at the successful rendering of the mottled appearance of
the background and the dead surface of the colours which has been
very difficult to obtain. I am enchanted with these proofs and am sure
that you will share my enthusiasm.”44 She was so pleased that she gave
her own copy of the proofs to Adolar Röhl to create a mockup of the
mounting and the binding and give her an estimate for 300 copies. She
implicitly trusted Röhl’s work because she had been working with him
for many years. She was also pleased with the pricing that Röhl gave her.
His estimate for mounting, binding, and building cases was less than
the price an English binder had quoted her for the mounting alone.
In early March 1900, when Nuttall was expecting Whitehead to
send the final proofs to Röhl, Sir Edward Thompson went to review
the final plates one last time. Nuttall had earlier expressed confidence
in his taste and assistance when it came to checking the proofs, writing
that “we can count on him and the British Museum experts.”45 During
the final check, however, Thompson noticed that Whitehead’s work
had gone awry and the coloring was completely off. Nuttall guessed
that Whitehead had acquired a new artist, and she planned to return to
Zelia Nuttall and the Tonindeye Codex | 39

London to oversee the new coloring. She wrote, “I enclose Sir Edward
Thompson’s last letter—you can see that he is doing all that he can for
us. I cannot understand how it is that Whitehead went all wrong with
the colours after I left, because the samples he submitted to me were
quite satisfactory, also to Sir. T. He must have changed artists and I am
anxious to get back there to see for myself and to put some pressure
upon him.”46 After Thompson spoke to Whitehead about the necessary
corrections, the printer haggled over the price of the reprinting, and
Nuttall instructed Thompson to persuade Whitehead to accept the
payment. If he did not do so, all of the prints would need to be burned
in a “dire desecration—an auto-de-fe,” presumably so that he could not
resell them for use in some other publication.47
Four hundred ninety-eight copies were printed, and 300 of them
were bound in a style that mimicked the accordion fold of the pictorial manuscript (Figure 2). This binding required 51,000 linen strips,
which were dyed by Whitehead and sent to Röhl to mount the book.
Röhl’s workshop was in his residence, and he had little assistance in
his work.48 The illustrated plates are mounted on both sides of thin
pieces of cardboard so the facsimile is double-sided (Figure 3.) Nuttall
was determined that the book should be light but durable.
Nuttall delighted in deciding on the finishing touches. She told
Bowditch, “You will see, dear Mr. Bowditch that I am giving the matter my best attention and it certainly gives me intense pleasure to do
so.”49 Nuttall kept Bowditch apprised of all the details to ensure his
continued patronage; each new element she added increased the cost
40 | printing history

Figure 2: The Peabody Museum
published 300 copies of the accordion
fold edition of the Codex Nuttall:
Facsimile of an Ancient Mexican
Codex Belonging to Lord Zouche of
Harynworth England in 1902.

of production. Nuttall’s attention to these details gives us a clear sense
of the materiality of the original document, particularly because this
edition reflects the exact dimensions of the original.
Nuttall wanted dyed parchment or vellum to be used on the covers of
the presentation copies, and she eventually acquired antique parchment
for this purpose. She then tried out two different printers in Germany
before she was satisfied with the work of the German printer Wilhelm
Hoffmann, who she asked to print a date symbol from the pictorial
manuscript on the cover (Figure 4). Nuttall wrote, “The date of 1 Acatl
and 1 Cipactli, the first of the MS. … recurs in various sizes and forms,
one of which is quite large and decorative and would look splendidly
reproduced on the cover.”50
Nuttall felt personally responsible for any errors that might emerge,
and she labored over the introduction, where she explained how she
located the manuscript, how to read the pages, and even how to handle

Figure 3: Linen strips bind the edges of
the cardboard that holds the mounted
plates. Photograph by the author.
Private collection.

Zelia Nuttall and the Tonindeye Codex | 41

the facsimile. “The text of the Codex reads from right to left, therefore, when the book lies closed, with the conventionalized ray of the
year-sign pointing upwards, the left end of the cover is to be raised and
carried over to the right, thus disclosing page 1, which begins in the
lower right-hand corner.”51
The quality of the reproduction is exquisite, and the materials used
in it have withstood 120 years. Surviving copies of the book reflect
the efforts that Nuttall and Whitehead took to retain the remarkable
coloring of the original in the facsimile.52

Access and Distribution
Nuttall compiled a list with more than 100 names of individuals who
were to receive complimentary copies of the accordion-fold edition.
Among these recipients were Mexican politicians, diplomats, and scholars, such as President Porfirio Díaz; the Minister of Education, Justo
Sierra; and Professor Nicolás León.53 Nuttall hoped to carry copies with
her when she went to Mexico in January 1902, but delays in printing
meant she was unable to obtain any copies before she embarked on
the trip.54 While in Oaxaca, she appealed to the Peabody Museum for
copies to give to the archaeologist Marshall Saville and the explorer
Alfred Maudslay.55 This request speaks to the fact that social relationships, established and maintained through the exchange of such gifts,
remained an important element of Nuttall’s scholarly activities and
ability to network.
In late February 1902, Nuttall was visiting with Saville in Oaxaca
when they encountered Leopoldo Batres, the Mexican Inspector
General and Conservator of Archaeological Monuments. Batres was
a cantankerous fellow who did not get along with most of the archaeologists working in Mexico, regardless of their national origin. He did
not hesitate to inform Nuttall that he had expected her to send him
a presentation copy of the Codex Nuttall facsimile, and he made it
clear that he was disappointed not to have received such a gift. Batres’s
comment illustrates that scholars and archaeologists often used their
publications as a form of diplomatic and political currency. It might
be expected that Nuttall would send the Mexican Inspector General a
copy of her reproduction of a Mexican book, and earlier in her career,
Nuttall had sent copies of her essays to Batres. In the intervening time,
however, Nuttall had developed a strong dislike for Batres because
she had heard that he had mistreated Saville. Saville had left Mexico
without completing his excavations at Palenque because Batres had
interfered constantly.56 Having heard these stories from Saville, Nuttall bristled when Batres demanded a copy of her book. She resented
42 | printing history

Figure 4: Zelia Nuttall chose the date
1 Acatl 1 Cipactli for the cover of the
codex. The date occurs throughout the
original manuscript. Photograph by
the author. Private collection.

it even more when Batres went further and threatened the Peabody
Museum. As Nuttall told the story to Putnam, Batres warned that, if
the Peabody Museum did not send him four copies of the book, “he
would not be good to your museum!”57
Courtesy copies may have been politically important, but few people
wanted to purchase a copy of the book, which was quite expensive
to produce. In total, Whitehead’s portion alone had cost more than
$3,125.00; therefore, printing and binding costs probably exceeded
$4,000.00.58 The Peabody offered the codex to subscribers for the
elevated price of $20.00. Nuttall felt the price was justified. She told
Putnam, “I am glad that the Codex will be sold for $20, for it is well
worth it.”59 Inexplicably, the resale value of the facsimile in 1910, priced
at little more than £3 from a British vendor, suggests that the book was
being sold at half price despite its fine quality.60 Many copies had been
distributed, but Nuttall lamented that the Peabody Museum was not
successful in convincing libraries to purchase copies. At that time, the
museum did not even print a catalog to advertise its publications. As
the Peabody Museum published journals and books on a subscription
basis in 1902, it is unlikely that it had any mechanisms in place for
advertising and distributing what was essentially an artisan product.
As of September 1902, only nine copies of the book had been sold, and
Nuttall declared to Putnam that she was “disgusted.”61 The expense of
the facsimile is possibly one of the reasons the Peabody Museum failed
to follow up on subsequent projects with Nuttall. Although museum
officials did not tell her so directly, her correspondence throughout
1902 demonstrates that they let her work on the Florentine Codex
languish at a time when she was trying to publish competitively on
the document.62

Conclusion
Nuttall’s ability to trace the provenance of this codex and gain access
to it for scholarly purposes depended on her access to a largely informal network of friendships, confidential conversations, gossip, and
quasi-legal dealings. Nuttall was uniquely positioned to move between
a world of amateur collectors and antiquarian enthusiasts on the one
hand, and academic institutions, museums, and professional scholars
on the other. In a time of increasing professionalization and transition
for both archives and pre-Columbian scholarship, Nuttall and her
work served as an important bridge.
Although the facsimile was not an immediate commercial success, Nuttall achieved her ambition to share the manuscript. In the
decades following initial publication of the facsimile, the manuscript
Zelia Nuttall and the Tonindeye Codex | 43

was reproduced numerous times, with introductions in English, Spanish,
and German. Perhaps the most democratic of these print reproductions
is the richly colored paperback edition, a facsimile of Nuttall’s facsimile
(with corrections), issued by Dover Publications in 1975 and still widely
available in the used book market.63 The technology for reproducing
facsimiles in the twenty-first century has shifted. The Internet Archive
now hosts a photographic version of Nuttall’s introduction and facsimile
online.64 The British Museum, still the caretakers of the original document, hosts a photographic copy and provides some interpretation on
its own website.65
Scholars continue to consider the Codex Tonindeye to be one of the
most important remaining Indigenous pictorial manuscripts. Because
Nuttall was the first to contextualize the document, trace its history,
and track its movements, she was able to use the act of publishing the
facsimile to highlight that culturally significant Indigenous documents
had been removed from Mexico as gifts or loot, only to languish forgotten
in European archives. Nuttall’s ability to recognize the importance of
the document and begin to read and interpret it allowed her to provide a
context for a manuscript that had long been displaced in space and time.
Her perseverance in bringing the codex to a wider audience reflects the
immeasurable value that she placed on both the manuscript itself and the
cultural knowledge it so beautifully embodies and preserves. Through
manuscripts like the Codex Tonindeye, ancient civilizations chronicled
their own histories and dynasties. As the first scholar to uncover this
codex and share it with the world, particularly scholars in Mexico, Nuttall’s work provides an early, crucial example of how Indigenous manuscripts found in European archives can regain their voices, reclaim their
historical identity, and continue to tell their story.66

Endnotes
1. Sections of this research were presented at the Durham History of the Book Conference, “Organizing and Disorganizing Knowledge,” on 8 September 2021. Many
thanks to the organizers Sare Aricanli, Laura Leon Llerena, and Luke Sunderland.
Thanks also to Marie Wasnock and Katherine Meyers Satriano (Peabody Museum),
Suzanne Karr Schmidt (Newberry Library), and Kathleen Feeney (University of Chicago Library) for their help in finding sources, information, and photographs. I am
grateful to all who read drafts of this article and provided suggestions and comments.
A portion of this research was funded by a research grant from the Arizona State
University Library. 						
Epigraph from Zelia Nuttall, “Introduction.” In Codex Nuttall; Facsimile of an ancient
Mexican Codex belonging to Lord Zouche of Harynworth, England (Cambridge, MA:
Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University,
1902), 1, 4; alternate names for the codex include Ancient Mexican Codex, Codex
San Marco, Codex Zouche, Codex Zouche-Nuttall, Codex Nuttall, and Codex Tonindeye.

44 | printing history

2. The Maya Codex of Mexico was previously known as the “Grolier Codex” because it was
housed at the Grolier Club in New York. It was repatriated to Mexico more than six years
ago. Erin Blakemore, “New Analysis Shows Disputed Maya ‘Grolier Codex’ Is the Real
Deal,” Smithsonian Magazine 15 September 2016. https://www.smithsonianmag.
com/smart-news/maya-codex-once-thought-be-sketchy-real-thing-180960466/.
3. Miruna Achim, From Idols to Antiquity: Forging the National Museum of Mexico (University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, 2017), chap. 2.
4. Nuttall’s list of “sister codices” included the Vatican, the Borgian, the Cospi, the
Fejérváry (Mayer), the Laud, the Bodleian, and the Selden codices. Nuttall, “Introduction,” Codex, 6.
5. Alfred M. Tozzer, “Zelia Nuttall (obituary),” American Anthropologist 35, (1933):
475–481; Ross Parmenter, “Zelia Nuttall and the Recovery of Mexico’s Past,” 1–3,
Ross Parmenter Papers (unpublished MSS, Latin American Library at Tulane,”
undated), 13–29.
6. Amanda Adams, “Mexico’s Archaeological Queen: Zelia Nuttall 1857–1933,” in Ladies
of the Field: Early Women Archaeologists and Their Search for Adventure, ed. Amanda
Adams (Berkeley: Greystone Book, 2010), 69.
7. Sven D. Haakanson, Jr. and Amy F. Steffian, Giinaquq like a Face: Sugpiaq Masks of
the Kodiak Archipelego (Château-Musée de Boulogne-sur-Mer: Alutiiq Museum &
Archaeological Repository, 2009), 31–41.
8. Ross Parmenter, Explorer, Linguist and Ethnologist: A Descriptive Bibliography of
the Published Works of Alphonse Louis Pinart with Notes on His Life (Los Angeles:
Southwest Museum, 1966), 2.
9. Letter from Zelia Nuttall to Frederick Ward Putnam, 23 May 1888. Zelia Nuttall
Papers, Peabody Museum Archives, Harvard University.
10. Letters from Zelia Nuttall to Frederick Ward Putnam, 10 January 1901; 20 April 1901.
Zelia Nuttall Papers, Peabody Museum Archives, Harvard University.
11. Seonaid Valiant, Ornamental Nationalism: Archaeology and Antiquities in Mexico,
1876–1911 (Leiden: Brill, 2018), chap. 6 and 7.
12. Achim, From Idols to Antiquity, chap. 2.
13. Tozzer, “Zelia,” 476.
14. Seonaid Valiant, “First in the Archives: Zelia Nuttall and the Mexican Manuscripts”
(MLIS thesis, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 2019), 16–18.
15. Zelia Nuttall, “Note on the Ancient Mexican Calendar System” (Proceedings of the
International Congress of Americanists, Stockholm, 1894), 1–41.
16. British Museum, “The Tonindeye Codex.” https://www.britishmuseum.org/
collection/object/E_Am1902-0308-1.
17. Laura Osario Sunnucks, “The Tonindeye Codex,” in “Made in Latin America,” British
Museum Podcast, date unknown, last accessed 19 August 2022, https://www.sdcelar
britishmuseum.org / blog / listen-to-the-new-sdcelar-podcast-made-in-latin
america/.
18. Davide Domenici, “The Dominicans as Conveyors of Mesoamerican Objects to
Italy and Europe,” in Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Latin American History (31
August 2021), 2. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199366439.013.967. Last
accessed 22 July 2022.
19. Lauren Toorians explores pathways that may have landed the Mixtec codex in the
Italian archive. Lauren Toorians, “Codex Zouche-Nuttall: Some Observations Concerning its History.” Mexican 17, no. 4 (August 1995): 74–75.
20. Maarten Jansen and Gabina Aurora Pérez Jiménez, “Renaming the Mexican Codices,”
Ancient Mesoamerica 15 (2004): 267.
21. Jansen and Pérez Jiménez, “Renaming,” 269.
22. Sunnucks, “The Tonindeye.”
23. Davide Domenici documents that there were many Mexican artifacts and documents
transferred from the Americas to Italy. Domenici, “The Dominicans,” 1–19.
24. Nuttall, “Introduction,” Codex, 1.

Zelia Nuttall and the Tonindeye Codex | 45

25. Nuttall, “Introduction,” Codex, 1–3.
26. Nuttall, “Introduction,” Codex, 1–2.
27. Zelia Nuttall, The Book of the Life of the Ancient Mexicans, Containing an Account
of their Rites and Superstitions: An Anonymous Hispano-Mexican Manuscript Preserved at the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale (Berkeley: University of California, 1903),
“Preface,” iii.
28. The scholar Nancy P. Troike, in her 1987 introduction to a facsimile of the codex,
published these letters between Leader and Curzon regarding the theft of the codex
from Italy. Nancy P. Troike, “Introduction,” Codex Zouche Nuttall (London: British
Museum, 1987), 19.
29. Troike, “Introduction,” 20.
30. Troike, “Introduction,” 22.
31. British Museum. “The Tonindeye Codex.” https://www.britishmuseum.org/
collection/object/E_Am1902-0308-1.
32. Nuttall, “Introduction,” Codex, 4–5.
33. Nuttall, “Introduction,” Codex, 6.
34. Alfred M. Tozzer, “Charles Pickering Bowditch (obituary),” American Anthropologist
23 no. 3 (1921): 353.
35. Nuttall, “Introduction,” Codex, 5.
36. Parmenter, “Zelia Nuttall,” 727.
37. Letter from Zelia Nuttall to Frederick Ward Putnam, 27 May 1902. Zelia Nuttall
Papers, Peabody Museum Archive, Harvard University.
38. Frederick Ward Putnam, “Note,” in Zelia Nuttall, Codex, no page number.
39. Letter from Zelia Nuttall to Charles Bowditch, 30 November 1898. Zelia Nuttall
Papers, Peabody Museum Archive, Harvard University.
40. Letter from Zelia Nuttall to Frederick Ward Putnam, 5 August 1899. Zelia Nuttall
Papers, Peabody Museum Archive, Harvard University.
41. Letter from Zelia Nuttall to Charles Bowditch, 30 November 1898; contract between
Gilbert Whitehead and Company, Art Colour Printers, 29 November 1898. Zelia
Nuttall Papers, Peabody Museum Archive, Harvard University.
42. Letter from Adolar Röhl to Zelia Nuttall, 22 May 1901. Zelia Nuttall Papers, Peabody
Museum Archive, Harvard University.
43. Letter from Zelia Nuttall to Charles Bowditch, 30 November 1898. Zelia Nuttall
Papers, Peabody Museum Archive, Harvard University.
44. Letter from Zelia Nuttall to Charles Bowditch, 11 March 1900. Zelia Nuttall Papers,
Peabody Museum Archive, Harvard University.
45. Letter from Zelia Nuttall to Charles Bowditch, 14 September 1899. Zelia Nuttall
Papers, Peabody Museum Archive, Harvard University.
46. Letter from Zelia Nuttall to Charles Bowditch, 11 March 1900. Zelia Nuttall Papers,
Peabody Museum Archive, Harvard University.
47. Letters from Zelia Nuttall to Charles Bowditch, 11 March 1900, 22 June 1901; letter
from Zelia Nuttall to Frederick Ward Putnam, 5 August 1899; 1902 (no other date
given). Zelia Nuttall Papers, Peabody Museum Archive, Harvard University.
48. Letter from Adolar Röhl to Charles Bowditch, 7 October 1901. Zelia Nuttall Papers,
Peabody Museum Archive, Harvard University.
49. Letter from Zelia Nuttall to Charles Bowditch, 21 January 1900. Zelia Nuttall Papers,
Peabody Museum Archive, Harvard University.
50. Letter from Zelia Nuttall to Charles Bowditch, 21 January 1900. Zelia Nuttall Papers,
Peabody Museum Archive, Harvard University. Zelia Nuttall, Codex, cover, 9. Including a cover is one of Nuttall’s contributions to the facsimile.
51. Nuttall, “Introduction,” Codex, 7.
52. Another set of copies was printed on different paper and bound as a more traditional
European book. The quality of the reproductions in this edition is durable but poor
compared to the accordion-fold edition. In OCLC, this edition is often miscataloged
as the accordion-fold edition.

46 | printing history

53. Zelia Nuttall, List of recipients, Folder: Nuttall Correspondence, PM Papers, volume
II, “mailing lists for complimentary…” Letter from Zelia Nuttall to Frederick Ward
Putnam, 11 January 1902; 8 February 1902. Zelia Nuttall Papers, Peabody Museum
Archive, Harvard University.
54. Letter from Zelia Nuttall to Frederick Ward Putnam, 11 January 1902. Zelia Nuttall
Papers, Peabody Museum Archive, Harvard University.
55. Letter from Zelia Nuttall to Frederick Ward Putnam, 16 February 1902. Zelia Nuttall
Papers, Peabody Museum Archive, Harvard University.
56. Marshall H. Saville, “Bibliographic Notes on Palenque, Chiapas,” Indian Notes and
Monographs (New York: Museum of the American Indian Heyes Foundation, 1928),
155–167; letter from Zelia Nuttall to Miss Mead (Francis Harvey Teobert Mead) at
the Peabody Museum, 16 February 1902. Zelia Nuttall Papers, Peabody Museum
Archive, Harvard University.
57. Letter from Zelia Nuttall to Frederick Ward Putnam, February 1902. Zelia Nuttall
Papers, Peabody Museum Archive, Harvard University. Nuttall assisted the Mexican
student Manual Gamio so he could study anthropology at Columbia University with
Franz Boas. Nuttall explicitly told Boas that he should train Gamio to replace Batres
as the national archaeologist and head of the National Museum of Anthropology.
Letter from Zelia Nuttall to Franz Boas, 27 September 1909. Franz Boas Papers.
American Philosophical Society; Zelia Nuttall, “Island of Sacrificios,” American
Anthropologist 12 (1910). Note 1: 280; Seonaid Valiant, “Zelia Nuttall,” in Women
that Changed the World, edited by Candice Goucher (Santa Barbara, CA: ABCClio, 2022), 916.
58. Estimate sent from Gilbert Whitehead to Zelia Nuttall. Undated; Bill from Gilbert
Whitehead for linen strips, 28 March 1901; receipt from Adolar Röhl to Zelia Nuttall
for $404.25 marks, January 1901; estimate from Wilhelm Hoffman for printing the
cover for $12.5 marks, 25 May 1900; letter from Zelia Nuttall to Charles Pickering
Bowditch, 11 March 1900. Zelia Nuttall Papers, Peabody Museum Archive, Harvard
University.
59. Letter from Zelia Nuttall to Frederick Ward Putnam, 16 February 1902. Zelia Nuttall
Papers, Peabody Museum Archive, Harvard University.
60. Edward E. Ayer, a trustee of the Newberry Library, purchased a copy of the book
from a British bookseller in 1910 for £3, 4 shillings, 3 pence (minus a 10% discount).
This information is written on the back inside cover of his copy, held at the Newberry Library.
61. Letter from Zelia Nuttall to Frederick Ward Putnam, 25 September 1902. Zelia
Nuttall Papers, Peabody Museum Archive, Harvard University.
62. Valiant, “First,” 24–27.
63. Nuttall, Zelia. The Codex Nuttall: A Picture Manuscript from Ancient Mexico, the
Peabody Museum Facsimile. Arthur Miller, ed. (New York: Dover Publications, 1975).
Mesolore documented the following editions of the original document: Akademische Druk-und Verlagsanstalt in 1987, Sociedad Estatal Quinto Centenario, the
Akademische Druk-und Verlagsanstalt, and the Fondo de Cultura Economica in
1992. http://www.mesolore.org/tutorials/learn/4/Introduction-to-the-Codex-Nuttall/23/History-and-Publications. Last accessed 20 July 2022.
64. Codex Zouche Nuttall. https://archive.org/details/codex-zouche-nuttall. Last
accessed 21 July 2022.
65. British Museum. “Tonindeye Codex.” https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/
object/E_Am1902-0308-1.
66. Ferdinand Anders, Maarten E.R.G.N. Jansen, Pérez Jiménez, Gabina Aurora. Crónica
Mixteca: el rey 8 Venado, Garra de Jaguar, y la dinastía de Teozacualco-Zaachila:
libro explicativo del llamado Códice Zouche-Nuttall, Ms. 39671 British Museum,
Londres (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica; Graz: Akademische Druck und
Verlagsanstalt, 1992), 11, 21.

Zelia Nuttall and the Tonindeye Codex | 47

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50 | printing history