tocatl (FCbk11f93r)

tocatl (FCbk11f93r)
Iconography

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This iconographic example, featuring a spider (tocatl), 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 bird’s eye view of the spider, which has twelve skinny, curving legs. Its body is a dark gray in two parts. The rear end is red and pointed. The contextualizing image shows a group of eggs on the ground nearby. These eggs have short lines emanating around them in a kind of shimmer or tonalli. The contextualizing image also shows this spider floating in a landscape. The landscape setting for this creature shows European artistic influence. Other paintings on this page show how people are treated for spider bites.

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

A number of Nahuatl hieroglyphs for tocatl (as a simplex or part of a compound) appear in this collection. A Quick Search for tocatl will turn them all up. One shows a swirling web coming out of the bottom of a spider, and another shows a shape much more like a spider web coming out of that bottom. Spiders will have any number of legs in these drawings.

Added Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Gloss or Text Image:

Gloss/Text Diplomatic Transcription:

tocatl

Gloss/Text Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript:

Florentine/Florentinus, Codex (FC)

Date of Manuscript:

1577

Creator's Location (and place coverage):

Mexico City

Syntax:

noun(s)

Cultural Content & Iconography:

Animals: Insects & Bugs

Health, Medicine

Cultural Content, Credit:

Jeff Haskett-Wood

Colors:

black

gray

red

Shapes and Perspectives:

bird's eye view

curving, curvy, curved

facing right

shimmer, vibrance, shine with warmth & movement

Other Cultural Influences:

Spanish/European

Keywords:

arañas, piernas, telaraña, telaraña, picadura, picaduras, tonalli

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

toca(tl), spider, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tocatl

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation:

la araña

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 11: Earthly Things", fol. 93r, Getty Research Institute, 2023. https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/en/book/11/folio/93r/images/0 Accessed 16 October 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.”

Historical Contextualizing Image: