Courtesy The Newberry Library, Chicago
Ayer Ms. 1108

Prof. Amber Brian will share important early transcriptions of works by the seventeenth-century mestizo historian, Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl. Until the re-discovery the Alva Ixtlilxochitl’s manuscripts in the Bible Society Library in England, the transcriptions by Boturini and Echevarria y Veytia that are part of the Ayer Collection offered some of the most important sources for editions of his works.
This is an image of the first two folios of a copy by Mariano Fernández de Echeverría y Veytia (1720-1778) of Alva Ixtlilxochitl’s Compendio histórico de los reyes de Texcoco. This copy was made from Boturini’s manuscript copy, which was housed in a viceregal office in Mexico City, in 1755. Echeverría y Veytia’s copy registers a history of the text and its readers, including Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora (1645-1700) who had written a marginal note on the original manuscript that was later copied by Boturini, Echevarría y Veytia, and others.