La Storia Antica del Messico by Francesco Saverio Clavigero Echegaray (1781)

ANNOTATION 1:

Similar not only in print design but in misidentifying the axolotl as an Iguana, Clavijero's volume borrows the pictured image from the 1651 publication of the Novae Plantarum. Given their vast publication differences, this plate or copies of it must have been widely used and reused across European countries for at least 130 years, emphasizing the scarcity of knowledge and resources outlining American flora and fauna.

ANNOTATION 4:

This image, which attempts to depict a Itzcuintepotzotli, an animal Clavigero locates as living within Anahuac, and being a "dog with no neck and a large lump upon its back." The fact that no dog breed that matches this description exists could represent a case of extinction before modern recordings or that Clavigero's information was inaccurate. The Itzcuintepotzotli could be a Xoloitzcuintle, a common dog during the time period that still exists today and is remarkably similar to the description of the Itzcuintepotzotli (hairless) yet they have necks and lack lumps. This interesting discontinuity between colonial texts that represent Indigenous life and what life was actually like, pieced together through Indigenous codices, oral tradition, and material evidence, is vital to keep in mind when trying to create dictionaries of Indigenous language through these texts. This work cannot be done uncritically or without the direct involvement and leadership of Indigenous communities.

All of these definitions and etymologies could have been a development of historical "telephoning," where erroneous ideas permeate through several generations of historical texts and voyages drawing on each other (e.g. the "axolotl" plate on the same page).

ANNOTATION 6:

This image, "A Gladitorial Sacrifice," depicts Aztec warriors in Romanized style and pose.

This is print is representative of the dual aims of these "New World Books," to render the Americas and their inhabitants legible to a European audience in addition to "otherizing" them. The audience was familiar with this art style, because it was one that was commonplace in European Renaissance depictions of the so-called "barbarity" to the ancient, Pagan world, but the subject matter still implied the same themes as "A Common Sacrifice", seen in annotation 5.