Axolotl (FCbk11f241v)
This iconographic image is of a type of salamander called an (axolotl) foune in the lakes of the Valley of Mexico. It appears on folio 241v in Book 11, “Earthly Things,” of the General History of the Things of New Spain, also known as the Florentine Codex. The salamander is drawn naturalistically from a 3/4 perspective or a modified bird's-eye view. The animal faces to the right and rests on lines that suggest its watery home. It is shaded in dark grays, giving it a three-dimensionality. The artist was careful to show its gills and the claws on its webbed feet, as well as its characteristic wide mouth, beady eyes, a ridge running down its back and tail, and the rotund shape of its body.
Robert Haskett
The axolotl is described in Nahuatl by Sahagún’s Nahua co-authors as being “like the lizard, it has legs, it has a tail, a wide tail. It is large-mouthed, bearded. It is glistening, well fleshed, heavily fleshed, meaty. It is boneless--not very bony; good, fine, edible, savory: what one deserves.” The English translation is found in Sahagún, Fray Bernardino, General History of the Things of New Spain: Book 11 – Earthly Things. Translated and edited by Charles E. Dibble and Arthur J. O. Anderson. Salt Lake City and Santa Fe: The University of Utah, The School of American Research and the Museum of New Mexico, 1963, 64. For an interesting discussion of an axolotl by the San Diego Zoo, see https://animals.sandiegozoo.org/animals/axolotl.
Robert Haskett
Axolotl
axolotl
Robert Haskett
1577
Robert Haskett
salamanders, salamandras, animales
axolo(tl), a type of salamander, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/axolotl
el ajolote
Robert Haskett
Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2021667856/.
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