matlequiquiztli (FCbk12f23r)
This iconographic example, featuring a black and white sketch of a Spaniard shooting a harquebus (matlequiquiztli), is included in this digital collection for the purpose of making comparisons with related hieroglyphs. The term selected for this example comes from the text near the image in the Digital Florentine Codex. There is no gloss, per se. The contextualizing image shows about ten Spaniards on foot, carrying harquebuses. The detail has one shooter as its focus. Note the smoke coming out of the tip of the gun.
Stephanie Wood
Because these are Spanish firearms, it might not be surprising that these are the first harquebuses to enter this digital collection as of February 2026, when the database has over 7500 records. When the Nahuas set out to attack and defeat an opponent prior to the Spanish invasion, they used hand-held combat weapons and they set fire to the opponent’s temple. See the example of a defeat (tepehualiztli) below. As is typical of this manuscript, the setting is a landscape that involves three-dimensional shading (learned from European artists). The context is a ruling palace, with its signature circular designs below the roofline.
Stephanie Wood
matlequiquiztli
Stephanie Wood
1577
Jeff Haskett-Wood
arma, armas de fueto, arcabuz, arcabuces, armas portátiles, pólvora de tiro
matlequiquiz(tli), a harquebus or shotgun, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/matlequiquiztli
la arcabuz
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. 23r, Getty Research Institute, 2023. https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/en/book/12/folio/23r/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.”
