The Cortés Codex of Vienna and Emperor Ferdinand I

Abstract

The publication of a handsome facsimile edition of the Cortés Codex in the National Library at Vienna makes it peculiarly appropriate to raise again the long-disputed question why the volume was prepared and what the circumstances were that brought it to the Imperial Library at Vienna. The story of how the codex came to the attention of scholars is well known. In preparing his History of America, William Robertson hunted for Cortés' first letter in Spain without success. He then thought that since Charles V was in the Germanies when the letter arrived in Spain, it might have been forwarded to him and thereafter deposited in the Hapsburg Imperial Library in Vienna. Through the good offices of Sir Robert Murray, then British ambassador at the imperial court, permission was obtained from Empress Maria Theresa for a search not merely for the letter but also for any papers of interest for the History of America. The search did not bring to light the lost first letter but did uncover the Cortés Codex, and in it the letter of the city council of Veracruz written at the same time as Cortés' first letter. The codex contains also a copy of the fifth carta de relatión of Cortés, unknown until then but now known to exist in other manuscript versions. Since Robertson's day, the Cortés Codex has been consulted continually. It has served as the basis for verifying the texts of those relaciones for which there are other copies, and is the sole source for the letter of the city council of Veracruz, which is usually published as the first carta de relatión.

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