itzcuauhtli (FCbk11f45r)
This iconographic example, featuring the golden eagle (itzcuauhtli), is included in this digital collection for the purpose of making comparisons with related hieroglyphs. The term selected for this example comes from the Nahuatl text near the image in the Digital Florentine Codex. There is no gloss, per se. This example shows a ¾ view of an eagle with its head turned to the right. It is a dark gray to near black in the shaded areas (and the shading shows European artistic influence). It has the head of an undulating snake (coatl) in its yellow beak. The serpent is spotted and gray on its back, but light blue to white on its belly. The eagle also has a claw on the back of what may be a coyote (coyotl). Capturing two different kinds of prey at once places this cuauhtli in the impressive role of hunter.
Stephanie Wood
This digital collection includes a portrait of the ruler Itzcuauhtzin, who was named after this impressive eagle. The name glyphs for three non-elite men also feature “Itzcuauh” (the apocopated version of the name). See examples below.
Stephanie Wood
Itzquauhtli
itzcuauhtli
Stephanie Wood
1577
Jeff Haskett-Wood
águilas, pájaro, pájaros, ave, aves, serpientes, víbora, víboras, culebra, culebras, nombres de hombres
itzcuauh(tli), the golden eagle, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/itzcuauhtli
el águila real
Stephanie Wood
Available at Digital Florentine Codex/Códice Florentino Digital, edited by Kim N. Richter and Alicia Maria Houtrouw, "Book 11: Earthly Things", fol. 45r, Getty Research Institute, 2023. https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/en/book/11/folio/45r/images/0 Accessed 16 October 2025.
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.”
