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CHAPTER 3

Report on Repairs of 1985-6, Watermarks, and Collation of Codex Mendoza

(Oxford, Bodleian Library,

MS. Arch. Selden. A. 1)

B. C. Barker-Benfield Bodleian Library, University of Oxford

Introduction

The purpose of this section is to enrich the present study of the Codex Mendoza by making available this previously unpublished report on repairs, watermarks, and collation, composed between 1985 and 1999. Not intended as a full physical description of the manuscript, this section brings together various observations which emerged before, during, and after the repairs of 1985-6, about the physical nature of the entire manuscript volume, MS. Arch. Selden. A. 1, and in particular about its paper and collation-structure. This text also records the minor structural changes made during this time.

Concerns over the physical safety of the manuscript in 1985-6 were related to the impetus for a new facsimile edition, first raised in 1985 by the University of New Mexico Press. A contract for the facsimile was signed on October 2, 1985 and the main body of 5” x 4” color transparencies were made in October-November 1985 by the Bodleian Photographic Studio (the set may have incorporated some earlier transparencies from stock). In 1986, the University of New Mexico Press decided to withdraw from the project. However, another agreement was later signed (July 21, 1989) with the University of California Press, which finally published the facsimile to coincide with the Columbus Quincentenary celebrations of 1992 (Berdan and Anawalt 1992). For these purposes, an important point to note is that the plates of the 1992 facsimile were derived from transparencies which predated almost all the repairs of 1985-6.