Codex Azcatitlan Goes on View in Mexico City, as Culture Ministry Continues Centuries-Long Quest for Repatriation
The Azcatitlan Codex, an illustrated manuscript on Aztec (Mexica) history created between the late 16th and early 17th centuries, has gone on view at Mexico City’s National Museum of Anthropology through December 6. The codex is on loan from the National Library of France (BnF) as part of celebrations marking the bicentennial of diplomatic relations between France and Mexico, with Mexico lending the Boturini Codex to the BnF in exchange; both items are scheduled to return to their current owners by year’s end. Returning to Mexico for the first time since 1840, the 20-folio manuscript blends Mesoamerican pictographic traditions with European writing and narrates migration from Aztlan to the founding of Mexico-Tenochtitlan, subsequent rulers, and the Spanish conquest and evangelization. El País reports the codex passed from Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxóchitl to Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, then to a Jesuit library, was acquired by Lorenzo Boturini in 1737, seized by colonial authorities, sold in 1830 to Joseph Aubin (who shipped it to Paris in 1840), later sold to Eugène Goupil, and donated to the BnF in 1896. Mexico has pursued repatriation of such materials for nearly two centuries, and President Claudia Sheinbaum said in 2025—after a visit by French President Emmanuel Macron—that recovering codices in France is a top priority, though the government does not plan to claim the Azcatitlan Codex while it is on display.
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This story was covered in Restitution Reckonings and a Market on the Move