Huanitl (FCbk8f4v)

Huanitl (FCbk8f4v)
Simplex Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This colorful painting of the simplex glyph for the personal name Huanitl, the name of a ruler or rulers (over Tenochtitlan, Tacuba, and/or Ecatepec), features a flag (panitl), and Panitzin may have been an alternate name for Huanitl or Huanitzin, as our Online Nahuatl Dictionary shows. This is an elaborate, vertical flag, flying toward the viewer’s left. It has alternating red and yellow blocks. At the top of the staff holding the flag appear what may be a piece of turquoise, some short red feathers, and six longer quetzal feathers.

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

The glyph for the name of the ruler Huanitl that appears in the Codex Aubin (f. 76v) is a plain flag. Many flags (panitl or pamitl) in this collection, in fact, are plain. Flags play a major phonetic role in some place names, and in those cases the adornments to the flags are not meant literally but represent the locative (-pan, in or on) in the name of the place. Elaborate flags such as this one, for the ruler’s name, and some elaborate flags associated with certain places or feast days deserve further iconographic analysis. They stand out. See some more examples, below.

Added Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image:

Gloss Diplomatic Transcription:

vanitl

Gloss Normalization:

huanitl

Gloss Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript:

Florentine/Florentinus, Codex (FC)

Date of Manuscript:

1577

Creator's Location (and place coverage):

Mexico City

Semantic Categories:

personal name

Syntax:

noun(s)

Writing Features:

simplex or element as logogram

Cultural Content & Iconography:

Feathers

Flags, banners

Gender (male)

Names (personal and/or theonym)

Politics, Power, Governance

Turquoise or Jadeite

Cultural Content, Credit:

Jeff Haskett-Wood

Colors:

Shapes and Perspectives:

vertical, upright

Keywords:

bandera, banderas, turquesa, pluma, plumas, nombres famosos, nombres de hombres

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

Huanitl (also Huanitzin), name of a ruler or rulers, sometimes also called Panitzin, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/huanitl

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation:

(nombre de un gobernante)

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. 168v, Getty Research Institute, 2023. ttps://florentinecodex.getty.edu/en/book/8/folio/4v/images/45b33116-7f1b-4aee-accf-d5c9ac18a333 Accessed 20 June 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.”

Orthography:

"v" for u, uh, or hu

Historical Contextualizing Image: