The Original Alva Ixtlilxochitl Manuscripts at Cambridge University

The bulk of the large collection of books and manuscripts belonging to the Mexican scholar don Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora (1645-1700) was left to the Jesuit College of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in Mexico City. Sigüenza designated his nephew, Gabriel López de Sigüenza, as the executor of his estate and entrusted him with the care and transfer of his precious library. BSMS 374 is useful and instructive on two levels. First, having access to the original manuscripts will allow researcher to advance the philological study of the texts. And second, reading the holograph manuscripts in the bound volumes from the Bible Society encourages us to reflect on the significance of those texts in the contexts in which they were written, collected, and preserved. A Nahua letrado, Alva Ixtlilxochitl was engaged with multiple discourses associated with power and knowledge in seventeenth-century Mexico.