tonatiuh (FCbk11f99v)

tonatiuh (FCbk11f99v)
Iconography

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This iconographic example, featuring a sun (tonatiuh), is included in this digital collection for the purpose of making comparisons with related hieroglyphs. The term selected for this example is not in the accompanying text or in the keywords for this scent in the Digital Florentine Codex. Nor is there a gloss. It is an editorial decision to call it tonatiuh, which means the sun. This example is chosen because of the frontal view of a face, the rays that span out from the circle, and the yellow color.

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

This painting seems highly influenced by European artistic conventions, and it diverges considerably from the sun as it was painted, for example, in the earlier Codex Mendoza or the Telleriano-Remensis. The Matrícula de Huexotzinco of 1560, however, has examples of tonatiuh resembling this one, with its rays and face.

Added 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:

Anatomy, human body parts

Celestial Phenomena

Religion (Indigenous)

Cultural Content, Credit:

Jeff Haskett-Wood

Colors:

blue (turquoise)

green (light)

yellow or golden

Shapes and Perspectives:

frontal view

Keywords:

soles, cara, caras, rayos, amarillo

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

tonatiuh, the sun; a day, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tonatiuh

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation:

el sol

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. 99v, Getty Research Institute, 2023. https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/en/book/11/folio/99v/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: