chimalli (FCbk6f212r)

chimalli (FCbk6f212r)
Iconography

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This iconographic example, featuring a war shield (chimalli) is included in this digital collection for the purpose of making potential comparisons with related hieroglyphs. The term selected for this example comes from the keywords chosen by the team behind the Digital Florentine Codex. There is no gloss. This example shows a circular shield with a white border. The interior of the shield has three parallel curving lines (curving upward). Short vertical lines come up from the bottom-most of the three curving lines, running along it, but not reaching the line above. A crescent appears above these three lines, and three crescents appear below them. The crescents all have their points upward. The contextualizing image shows that this shield is paired with a hand-held club embedded with obsidian blades (macuahuitl).

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

For the personal name Chimal, this is the design of the shield that is shown. Furthermore, this may be the most popular shield design in this collection. But another popular design looks something like a modern hubcap or wheel design, a quincunx with a small circle in the middle. And there are various other designs. A Quick Search for chimalli will bring up a range of results.

Added Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript:

Florentine/Florentinus, Codex (FC)

Date of Manuscript:

1577

Creator's Location (and place coverage):

Mexico City

Syntax:

noun(s)

Cultural Content & Iconography:

Gender (male)

War or Conflict

Weapons, Shields, Armor

Cultural Content, Credit:

Jeff Haskett-Wood

Colors:

black & white drawing (no color)

Shapes and Perspectives:

circle(s) (small, often concentric)

circle, circular or rounded

frontal view

Keywords:

escudos, rodelas, guerra, guerrero, hombres, conflictos, batallas, círculos

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

chimal(li), war shield, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/chimalli

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation:

el escudo, o la rodela

Spanish Translation, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Image Source:

Available at Digital Florentine Codex/Códice Florentino Digital, edited by Kim N. Richter and Alicia Maria Houtrouw, "Book 6: Rhetoric and Moral Philosophy", fol. 212r, Getty Research Institute, 2023. https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/en/book/6/folio/212r/images/0. Accessed 10 July 2025.

Image Source, Rights:

Images of the digitized Florentine Codex are made available under the following Creative Commons license: CC BY-NC-ND (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International). For print-publication quality photos, please contact the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana ([email protected]). The Library of Congress has also published this manuscript, using the images of the World Digital Library copy. “The Library of Congress is unaware of any copyright or other restrictions in the World Digital Library Collection. Absent any such restrictions, these materials are free to use and reuse.”

Historical Contextualizing Image: