Rare Aztec Codex Returns to Mexico on Loan After Nearly Two Centuries in France

A 16th-century manuscript known as the Codex Azcatitlan opened to the public in Mexico City’s National Museum of Anthropology. The codex, which records the rise of the Aztec Empire and its fall during the Spanish conquest, was displayed behind glass for the first time in Mexico since it was taken to France in the early 1800s. The loan, arranged by France’s National Library, marks the bicentennial of diplomatic relations between the two nations.

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The codex consists of 25 parchment sheets illustrated with vivid pictograms that trace the migration from mythic Aztlán to the founding of Tenochtitlan. Scholars consider it one of the most comprehensive visual accounts of pre-colonial Aztec life. It was donated to the French National Library in 1898 by the widow of Franco-Mexican collector Eugène Goupil after being brought to France by researcher Joseph Marius Alexis Aubin. The manuscript is one of two major Aztec volumes held in France, the other being the Codex Borbonicus, which resides in the French National Assembly.

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Mexico has long demanded that France relinquish the codex permanently. President Claudia Sheinbaum urged French President Emmanuel Macron to return both the Codex Azcatitlan and the Codex Borbonicus during Macron’s visit to Mexico last year. Since 2018, Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History reported that over 16,200 cultural items have been repatriated from abroad, underscoring a broader restitution campaign. In 1982, a Mexican lawyer, José Luis Castañeda, removed the Codex Tonalamatl from the French National Library, an act France condemned as theft.

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The French National Library and the French National Assembly maintain that they are the rightful owners of the codices, despite Mexico’s calls for their return.

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• “They hid our history from us, they stole it!” — Emilia Mendoza — Emilia Mendoza, member of the Hnahnu community.

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