Re: Codex Mendoza

[Jorge Stolfi <stolfi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I do not believe that the VMS is a hoax, but let me play 
the devil's advocate for that hypothesis for a moment.

Most medieval hoax theories have assumed that the VMS was manufactured
to be sold as a fake Bacon original, or perhaps something Oriental.
But the discussion about Codex Mendoza made me think of another
variant.

News of American native books probably reached Europe in the early
1500's. Presumably, among the thousands of scholars and alchemists of
the time, there were many who would have paid a small fortune for a
Mayan codex, or even for a post-Columbian manuscript like Codex
Mendoza. However, those books must have been extremely rare. Even at
major cultural centers like Prague and Vienna, it is possible that no
one would have seen an American native book, and something like the
VMS could have easily been sold as the real thing.

Compared to the "Bacon" and "Oriental" variants, this one has the
merit of explaining why the bulk of the VMS contains not a single
recognizable European, Arabic, or Hebrew symbol. (Okay, there are the
symbols of the Zodiac, but the author --- who surely hadn't seen
an American codex himself --- may have unconsciously assumed them
to be "universals" used by the American natives too.)  Someone
who wanted to make a "fake Bacon" would surely try to plant 
here and there some hints that could be associated to Bacon;
and ditto for a fake Oriental book. 

On the other hand, the only unambiguous instance of a T-O map (the
schematic world map which was popular during most of the middle ages)
occurs in the nine-rosette page, at top right corner. To me, the
contents of that fold-out looks like the map of a fantastic land,
consisting of nine major islands connected by land bridges. The
placement of the T-O diagram would indicate that the whole archipelago
lies beyond the confines of the Old World, past an island with a 
volcano (which could be either Iceland or the Canaries) surrounded
by breaking waves, etc.  That *does* look like something that 
a forger would put in a fake Amerindian book...

As I said, I don't really believe in this theory, and anyway it does
not explain how the natural-looking "fake" text was composed.  
For whatever it is worth...

All the best,

--stolfi

PS. Ugo Pratt is a Venice-born artist, author of the "Corto Maltese"
comic books. One of his stories contains several dialogues by Polynesian
natives, which actually are barely disguised Venetian dialect. If the
VMS is a fake, the text must have been produced by an expedient of
this sort....