- The illustration called ‘Hummingbirds (Huitzitzilin)’, published in book 11 of the ‘Florentine Codex (1577)’
A decade ago, the first digitization of the Florentine Codex broke the accessibility barrier of the greatest source of knowledge of Mexica culture that until then had been available through few and expensive facsimiles. It was a version that today could be defined as basic, which required the competence of a specialist in Nahuatl and ancient Spanish.
Now, cutting-edge technology takes a step forward with a new digital version of the codex, intended for a global audience, created by the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles with the support of the Getty Trust and the Seaver Institute, in collaboration with the Medicea Laurenziana Library.
This is a task that has required seven years of work and the involvement of a multidisciplinary and transnational team of 68 specialists, led by Kim N. Richter, an expert in Mesoamerican art.
There are four aspects that characterize this proposal: one, the ease of consultation based on graphic essentiality and the help of countless support tools, starting with the transcription of the original texts.
In addition, the interactive search engine, which allows in-depth and fun navigation where image tags are included, through metadata, audio sheets and 15 thousand multilingual terms.