It’s rare that old books are exposed to the public, very old books, incunabula. Sometimes they appear in museums, temporary exhibitions, shows of a month or two. But the permanent collections are rare, as if not worth going there, discarding any depth: the paintings can be seen in their entirety from the very beginning, but the books … That’s why this morning happened in the library treasury is so special National Anthropology and History of Mexico City. A group of 15 people have gathered to see an old copy from 1552 on display for a few hours on a small, visible, breathable lectern.
Of course, there are gestures of expectation among those present. The medium helps. The Vault, an armored room in the basement of the National Museum of Anthropology, suggests mystery and solemnity. “You have before you,” says the master of ceremonies, the director of the library, Baltazar Brito, “the most important document of indigenous medicine of the 16th century.” Everyone looks ahead, at the table with the white tablecloth, an aseptic picture of a hospital. On the tablecloth a rather thin booklet, 15 by 20 centimetres, with a wine-colored velvet suit and memories of gold glitter on the edge. It’s not just a medical book. It is probably the first experiment in literary miscegenation in America.
The Libellus Medicinalibus Indorum Herbis, also known as the Codex De la Cruz-Badiano, is a marvel of 70 sheets of Genoese paper that had been lost and forgotten for centuries and was rediscovered in the Vatican Library between the wars. Written by two Nahuas of indigenous nobility who survived the conquest of Tenochtitlan, its content is a testament to Mexico’s past, but also to the present that was beginning to take shape. Beautiful drawings of medicinal plants are mixed on the sides with their names in Nahuatl as well as descriptions of the recipes in Latin, a reference to their first recipient, Emperor Carlos I. A product for a new era, one of the first delicacies of the new Spain.
The visit to the treasury, which houses 500 documents including codices, books, maps and other rarities and delicacies, takes place in homage to a new edition of the Libellus. The UNAM Faculty of Medicine has just published its own version of the Code, a small book that faithfully reproduces the original, accompanied by two supplementary documents, the Spanish translation by Ángel María Garibay and a collection of new essays on the Code that shed light on the matter about the identity and fate of their authors, the medicinal importance of the prescriptions, their validity, etc.
Herb Room of the Palace of the Faculty of Medicine of the UNAM Faculty of Medicine, on March 15th. UNAM
The launch of the new edition also accompanies the reopening of the room that the Medizinpalast, a mainstay of the faculty, has dedicated to the codex for more than 20 years. Nuria Galland, responsible for the new edition of the Libellus and the Palace exhibition, explains that “the walls of the room will collect a selection of 40 species that appear in the Codex, preserved in glycerine and still used, with its scientific terminology , Its Nahua Name, Its Pre-Hispanic Use, and Its Current Use”.
It is difficult to find a better place for the exhibition. The palace is located in an old house in the historical center of the capital, in front of the Plaza de Santo Domingo. It was built in the mid-18th century and was the seat of the Inquisition Court for more than 80 years. Then it fell into disrepair, nobody wanted it. Decades of persecution of witches and heretics left a stigma on the building. Myths and legends of ghosts deterred even the most seasoned buyer. Over the years the palace was the seat of the Archdiocese, the National Lottery and a military barracks until it became the university medical school in the mid-19th century.
Today the palace is accelerating its restoration. The codex room can be visited from the end of March. A fold-out facsimile will allow visitors to see the contents of the Libellus in the exhibition hall, surrounded by the plants it speaks of. Galland says that “ultimately the exhibition helps to complement the history of medicine in Mexico, the part of ancient Mexico and the mixed generation as the two worlds come together.”
Beware of heresy
An art historian, an expert on the Spanish Baroque and more specifically on the Inquisition, Galland was one of the 15 people who entered the treasury of the library to see the original Libellus. “I was very moved by the intensity of the colors,” he explains. “No technology can reproduce contact with matter. And I felt that the code confirmed it once again. There is nothing better than the stamp of time, the symbolic field around objects,” he adds.
Galland continues with the colors he associates with the book’s adventures. “It is an object that has passed through several hands, through several cities and still exists. It’s a testament to the past, it’s fascinating, it’s a wonderful treasure. The fact that it has such bright colors makes me think it hasn’t been used. People saw it, they were amazed and that was it,” he says.
The story of Libellus seems to have been taken from an adventure film from its inception. In 1552, in newborn New Spain, the viceroy Antonio de Mendoza’s son, Francisco, commissioned a book of the College of Tlatelolco to give King Carlos I a list of indigenous medicinal knowledge, from Old Kingdom recipes of plants, minerals and even animals.
In the Renaissance logic of the time, incorporating knowledge of the new territories was an idea, but it actually hid a small trap: the recipes had to adapt to the mood of the old kingdom and avoid anything to do with the Mexican gods. Not for nothing did part of Mesoamerican medicine deal with the possible wrath of their deities, a heresy for the still current Inquisition.
The Codex housed in the Codex Vault at the National Library of Anthropology and History. dr Eusebio Dávalos Hurtado (National Library of Anthropology and History)
Francisco De Mendoza’s motivation for giving the king a gift is not clear. Historians and academics have pointed out several ways, first, to win the monarch’s favor and re-interest him in the Colegio de Tlatelolco, an educational center for the indigenous nobility that was struggling for funding. Another, consistent with the first, is that De Mendoza had a keen interest in gaining a monopoly on importing medicinal plants from New Spain into Europe. Whatever the case, both happened over time.
At the college they entrusted the undertaking to the center’s physician, Martín De la Cruz, who according to scholars devoted to his figure was born before the conquest in the 1510s and trained in ticitl before the war with the Spanish. The viceroy and his son must have held him in high regard, for in the middle of the century they allowed him to ride a donkey and carry a crossbow, unusual privileges for the vanquished.
Since the book was a gift to the king, it was to be written in Latin, not Nahuatl, another oral language whose translation onto paper was invented at the time. Here De la Cruz received the help of Juan Badiano, a Mexican of the same kind, conversant in the use of the language of old Europe. No sooner said than done, they got to work and soon handed it over to the viceroy’s son.
a travel code
It seems that the ancient Holy Roman Emperor didn’t mean much to this lovely little book of medicinal plants from his new reigns. It is not known if he ever heard of him. Carlos I was about to abdicate and his son Felipe spent time outdoors before taking over the crown at the end of the decade. The one who actually took care of him was the Infanta Juana, regent of Spain. Historians assume that she received the codex in the middle of the decade and took it to the Las Descalzas Reales monastery in Madrid.
Already in the monastery, over the years, the Code passed into the domains of Diego de Cortavila, one of the highest authorities in the knowledge of medicinal plants at the time and pharmacist of the Infanta Juana’s niece. By this time, Mendoza had already won the favor of the regent, who had granted him the monopoly to import plants from New Spain.
The Codex De la Cruz-Badiano remained in the library of Cortavila for decades until 1625, when Pope Urban VIII’s nephew, Cardinal Francesco Barberini, traveled to Madrid to collect material on plants, among other things. One of his assistants visited Cortavila and he showed him the Libellus. He immediately bought it and took it to Italy. The trail is lost, but there is no reason to believe that the codex came from the hands of the Barberini, a powerful family at the time.
It is also known that the Libellus was included in the Vatican Library as part of the Barberini bibliographical collection in the early 20th century and was lost and forgotten there until researcher Charles Clark found it in 1929. The book was the cause of study and flattery. New editions were made in Mexico and abroad. But it wasn’t until 1990 that Pope John Paul II, interested in restoring a successful relationship with the American country, agreed to return the original.
Since then, the Libellus has slumbered in the treasury of the National Library of Anthropology. It was ever exposed to the public behind a display case, a total homage to frustration. How do you feel when you see a book in a display case and can’t turn the page? As a placebo, the Mexican government, like many others, digitized the code and today it can be viewed in its entirety on the Internet.
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