The Florentine Codex is a twelve-volume encyclopedia of Aztec history and culture written in the sixteenth century. It is one of the main sources historians have for learning about precolonial and early colonial Aztec society and has been declared by UNESCO to be of universal value. But scholars do not fully understand the process of how the Florentine Codex was created and have long debated how reliable it is and whose perspective it presents. In this lesson, students practice thinking historically as they work to answer the question: How reliable is the Florentine Codex for learning about Aztec history and culture?
Image: Illustration from the Florentine Codex created c. 1577. From the World Digital Library.
