cozamalotl (FCbk12fir)
This iconographic example, featuring a black and white sketch of rainbow (cozamalotl), is included in this digital collection for the purpose of making comparisons with related hieroglyphs. There is no gloss, per se, and no reference in the nearby text that explains that this is a rainbow. This example shows an arching channel of light over a harbor scene. This rainbow (if indeed that is what it is) does not have stripes that would indicate multiple colors.
Stephanie Wood
The contextualizing image shows that this rainbow seems to grace the invasion of the Spaniards in the Gulf, or perhaps it is there as an omen. Indigenous resistance is not a theme here. The interpreter, Malintzin (also known as doña Marina or Malinche), is hard at work. But, a Nahua man appears on the shore pointing at the ships, perhaps in recognition of the greater significance of these events. Another iconographic example of a rainbow from the Florentine Codex does have the stripes showing multiple colors. A Nahuatl hieroglyph for a rainbow in this digital collection does not look like these others; rather, it is a vertical group of five wavy lines that connect at the bottom. (See below.)
Stephanie Wood
1577
Jeff Haskett-Wood
rainbows, arcos, presagio, presagios, potento, portentos, agüero
cozamalo(tl), a rainbow, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/cozamalotl
el arcoíris
Stephanie Wood
Available at Digital Florentine Codex/Códice Florentino Digital, edited by Kim N. Richter and Alicia Maria Houtrouw, "Book 12: Conquest of Mexico", fol. ir, Getty Research Institute, 2023. https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/en/book/12/folio/ir/images/0 Accessed 7 February 2026.
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.”
