La primera lámina del Códice Vaticano A. ¿Un modelo para justificar la topografía celestial de la Antigüedad pagana indígena?

Abstract

The first folios of the Codex Vaticanus A include a cosmogological section containing images that can be regarded as unique in the Mesoamerican repertoire. Its originality lies in both the form and the content, as can be appreciated in the image representing the sky; the first of the document. After analyzing different traditional representations of the sky in indigenous and European contexts, I conclude that—far from being the last vestige of Nahua culture to survive the Christian destruction—the image of the codex is a new construct influenced decisively by the scholastic tradition. The work is conceived as a complex creative process, collective and multicultural, through which a new face is given to the sky; the sky of the New World gestated by indigenous brushstrokes.