tamazolin (FCbk11f76v)

tamazolin (FCbk11f76v)
Iconography

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This iconographic example, featuring a toad (tamazolin), 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 gray toad with white spots and something of a hunched back. It is crooked on a landscape, as though it is not really on the ground. The landscape setting suggests European artistic influence. This tamazolin appears in a nearly ¾ view, but with the head in a profile, facing the viewer’s right. The text describes the toad as only hopping, not walking, and critiques how it sits a long time. For a person to be like a toad meant to be slow at getting a message to someone.

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

The example of the tamazolin in the Codex Mendoza shows the spots to be bumps, with those along the top of the back protruding into the air. Tamazol was a personal name as found in the Matrícula de Huexotzinco, where the sign shows a bird’s eye view of the toad.

Added Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Gloss or Text Image:

Gloss/Text Diplomatic Transcription:

Tamaçoli

Gloss/Text Normalization:

tamazolin

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: Misc.

Cultural Content, Credit:

Jeff Haskett-Wood

Colors:

Shapes and Perspectives:

Keywords:

sapos, manchas, protuberancias, verrugas

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

tamazol(in), a toad, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tamazolin

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation:

el sapo

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. 76v, Getty Research Institute, 2023. https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/en/book/11/folio/76v/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: