tlatlatziniliztli (FCbk12f2r)
This iconographic example, featuring a black and white sketch of a lightning strike with reference to a thunderclap (tlatlatziniliztli), 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. This example shows a ruler seated on a woven icpalli and wearing a cloak tied over the shoulder and a diadem. He is shown in profile, facing toward the viewer’s right. He also points to the right, and tears stream down his cheek. Very close, just above his head, a horizontal lightning bolt apparently goes from left to right. On the next page is a straw hut at the temple complex of Xiuhteuctli, called Tzonmolco. It was apparently affected by the lightning and thunderclap.
Stephanie Wood
In this digital collection, there is another iconographic example of thunder or a lightning strike (with the verb, tlatlatzini), an iconographic example of a lightning strike (with the noun, tlapetlaniliztli), and a hieroglyph of the personal name Xiuhtli, which usually means comet but is strikingly similar to this thunderclap visual.
Stephanie Wood
…tlatlatziniliztli..
Stephanie Wood
1577
Jeff Haskett-Wood
trueno, rayo, rayos, clima, tetzahuitl
tlatlatziniliz(tli), a thunderslap, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tlatlatziniliztli
tlatlatzini, to thunder, or for lightning to strike, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tlatlatzini
el tronido
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. 2r, Getty Research Institute, 2023. https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/en/book/12/folio/2r/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.”
