234 UNIT 2 COLONIAL MESOAMERICA
A later section of the Borbonicusconsists of depictions of the ceremonies performed for the
months of the 365-day calendar and the New Fire Ceremony, performed every fifty-two years. This
was not something that pre-Columbian codices ordinarily included, so there were few conven-
tions regarding how such a document should look. The paintings are spread out across a blank
background with much space left empty; this arrangement contrasts to the very dense and even
distribution of figures across the page in pre-Columbian manuscripts. Also, the artist makes some
tentative and not altogether successful attempts to show perspective (Figure 6.10). The back of
the screenfold is left blank, an unlikely circumstance had the manuscript been made for actual
native use.Figure 6.10 Codex Borbonicus.The New Fire Ceremony: Every 52 years all fires were
extinguished, and a new fire was kindled in a temple near the Aztec capital. Here four priests
bring wood to feed the new fire. The lower two appear to stand on the temple stairs while the
upper two float in space. The artist has only partially adopted European conventions of
landscape and perspective. Reprinted with permission from Codex Borbonicus.Graz, Austria:
Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1974, folio 34.(continued)he drew presents an orderly, disciplined, hierarchical society of a sort that Europeans
of the time would be able to respect. The document is both a nostalgic, somewhat
idealized recollection of the preconquest social order and an attempt to persuade
Spanish viewers of the legitimacy of native society. Sent to Charles V, it was trans-
ported to France after French pirates attacked the Spanish fleet; eventually it ended
up in the Bodleian Library at Oxford University.