icpalli (FCbk4f71v)
This example supports the iconography of the icpalli (a seat of authority or Indigenous throne). This seat is shown in profile, facing toward the right. The seat has a high back, which also qualifies it to be called a tepotzoicpalli (or tepotzohicpalli, with the glottal stop), as identified by the team that created the Digital Florentine Codex. A man with a special cape tied onto his shoulders and a diadem (probably a copilli) on his head sits on this icpalli, appropriately dressed for an authority such as would sit on this throne. His knees are up toward his chin, and his arms are inside the cloak, too. The cloak is red and could consist of animal skin, as it has black spots. The border of the cloak is gray and hatched. Shading provides a three-dimensionality, which reveals European artistic influence. The man’s skin is a flesh tone. His diadem is white.
Stephanie Wood
While this image is not glossed, the team at the Digital Florentine Codex gave this image the keyword of icpalli, which we are honoring here. The compound glyph below this one, which includes an icpalli, shows it to have a similar herringbone weave, bordered edges, and a vertical or upright backing. The modern equipal is a Spanish-language term that derives from icpalli, but this modern wooden and leather chair differs considerably from the pre-contact throne. See an example of the equipal at Wikipedia.
Stephanie Wood
1577
Jeff Haskett-Wood
petate, petates, silla, sillas, trono, tronos, asiento, asientos, equipales
icpal(li), seat of authority or Indigenous throne, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/icpalli
la silla, o el trono
Stephanie Wood
Available at Digital Florentine Codex/Códice Florentino Digital, edited by Kim N. Richter and Alicia Maria Houtrouw, "Book 4: The Soothsayers", fol. 71v, Getty Research Institute, 2023. https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/en/book/4/folio/71v/images/c49d2839-75... Accessed 28 June 2025.
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.”
