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The blank leaf, folio 72, carries old sewing holes which are similar in kind and partly in position to those of folios i-ii. The old sewing holes of folio 72 differ from the positions of those of the seventeenth-century binding. Although it carries a different watermark, folio 72 probably dates from the same period as folios i-ii and fulfilled the same function as a flyleaf at the end of the Codex Mendoza. It now serves as a blank separating the Codex Mendoza from the second part of the volume. Originally, it was set deeper into the sewing, with a fairly broad stub which perhaps folded around or into Quire VIII; the area of its former fold carries traces of discoloration which could indicate that it was once lined on the outside with a fold of repairing paper, though nothing of this now remains.

Chart 17. Quire VIII, presumed earlier state, after the seventeenth-century rebinding

It is striking that the seventeenth-century quire signature, properly “8” in the sequence, is not visible at the top right of folio 66r (there is a possible erasure at about the same place, but yielding nothing under ultra-violet light). Its absence or erasure could imply that, in that system, these final leaves were regarded as part of the preceding quire (Quire VII). If so, this might suggest that the seventeenth-century binder had somehow been manipulated to attach these leaves together to yield a large quire of folios 56-65 + 66-71 + ?72. Given the artificiality of such a structure (chart not attempted), this might still be possible even with two sets of threads, as now visible between folios 60-61 and 67-68. However, it is dangerous to base too much on the negative evidence of a missing quire signature.