The editor was Dr. E. Förstemann, aulic counselor and librarian-in-chief of the Royal Library. He wrote an introduction (17 pp. 4to.) giving a history of the manuscript, and bibliographical and other notes upon it of much value. One opinion he defends must not be passed by in silence. It is that the Dresden Codex is not one, but parts of two original manuscripts written by different hands.
It appears that it has always been in two unequal fragments, which all previous writers have attributed to an accidental injury to the original. Dr. Förstemann gives a number of reasons for believing that this is not the correct explanation, but that we have here portions of two different books, having general similarity but also many points of diversity.
This separation led to an erroneous (or perhaps erroneous) sequence of the pages in Kingsborough’s edition. The artist Aglio took first one fragment and copied both sides, and then proceeded to the next one; and it is not certain that in either case he begins with the first page in the original order of the book.
The Codex Peresianus, or Codex Mexicanus, No. II, of the Bibliothèque Nationale of Paris.—This fragment—for it is unfortunately nothing more—was discovered in 1859 by Prof. Leon de Rosny among a mass of old papers in the National Library. It consists of eleven leaves, twenty-two pages, each 9 inches long and 5¼ inches wide. The writing is very much defaced, but was evidently of a highly artistic character, probably the most so of any manuscript known. It unquestionably belongs to the Maya manuscripts.
Its origin is unknown. The papers in which it was wrapped bore the name “Perez,” in a Spanish hand of the seventeenth century, and hence the name “Peresianus” was given it. By order of the Minister of Public Instruction, ten photographic copies of this Codex, without reduction, were prepared for the use of scholars. None of them were placed on sale, and so far as I know the only one which has found its way to the United States is that in my own library. An ordinary lithographic reproduction was given in the Archives paléographiques de l’Orient et de l’Amérique, tome I. (Paris, 1869–'71).
The Codex Tro, or Troano.—The publication of this valuable Codex we owe to the enthusiasm of the Abbé Brasseur (de Bourbourg). On his return from Yucatan in 1864 he visited Madrid, and found this Manuscript in the possession of Don Juan de Tro y Ortolano, professor of paleography, and himself a descendent of Hernan Cortes. The abbé named it Troano, as a compound of the two names of its owner; but later writers often content themselves by referring to it simply as the Codex Tro.
It consists of thirty-five leaves and seventy pages, each of which is larger than a page of the Dresden Codex, but less than one of the Codex Peresianus. It was published by chromo-lithography at Paris, in 1869, prefaced by a study on the graphic system of the Mayas by the abbé, and an attempt at a translation. The reproduction, which was carried out under the efficient care of M. Leonce Angrand, is extremely accurate.
The Codex Cortesianus.—This Codex, published at Paris, 1883, under the editorship of Professor Leon de Rosny, presents the closest analogy to the Codex Troano, of which, indeed, it probably formed a part. It has forty-two leaves, closely written in the calculiform character. There is no evidence that it was brought to Spain by Cortes, but from a tradition to that effect, it has received its name.
All four of these codices were written on paper manufactured from the leaves of the maguey plant, such as that in common use in Mexico. In Maya the maguey is called ci, the varieties being distinguished by various prefixes. It grows luxuriantly in most parts of Yucatan, and although the favorite tipple of the ancient inhabitants was mead, they were not unacquainted with the intoxicating pulque, the liquor from the maguey, if we can judge from their word for a drunkard, ci-vinic (vinic==man). The old writers were probably in error when they spoke of the books being made of the barks of trees; or, at least, they were not all of that material.
The above-mentioned Manuscripts are the only ones which have been published. I shall not enumerate those which are said to exist in private hands. So long as they are withheld from the examination of scientific men they can add nothing to the general stock of knowledge, and as statements about them are not verifiable, it is useless to make any.