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The present work departs from both early and recent findings on the materiality, historical context, and circulation of the manuscript as well from previous understandings of its contents, priorities, and reception. In doing so, this volume seeks to contribute to the aggregate of identities that historians have created for the Codex Mendoza, whether by simply changing the tempo and emphasis placed on the different episodes in the manuscript’s reproduction and circulation history, or by establishing a range of time for the production of the manuscript based on the dual axis of the codex’s historical context and inquiries into its materiality. Paraphrasing Daniela Bleichmar, this aggregate adds a new layer to the Codex Mendoza’s fluid ontology. This decision invariably underscores certain aspects of the manuscript that, notwithstanding their importance to the overarching history of the manuscript, in previous studies have played second fiddle.

Such is the case of the contrasting hypotheses on how the Codex Mendoza came to be in possession of its first known owner, French cosmographer André Thevet. Another important aspect of the manuscript’s history which has not been prioritized is Clavijero’s “invention” of the Codex Mendoza—relying on a widely known, yet anonymous source—during the eighteenth century. The first of these has been subsidiary to a history focused on demonstrating the connection between the manuscript and the first viceroy of New Spain since Clavijero’s aforementioned invention in the eighteenth century. As such, the “how” behind the Codex Mendoza’s arrival in France was shelved, relying on an account that, as we shall see, at best lacks support for its claims and, at worst, advances false information. In this essay, I argue for an alternative route of arrival that posits that the manuscript was initially available to a European context that was far wider than the viceroyal commission. However, at the same time, I acknowledge that, with the extant documentary evidence available, it is impossible to fully verify the manuscript’s initial trajectory. Likewise, I suggest that Clavijero’s decision owed more to his own literary agenda within the context of a proto-nationalist Mexican movement, than to the existence of any evidence tying the document to the viceroy.