After nearly two centuries in Paris, the Codex Azcatitlan, a manuscript chronicling the history of the Aztec empire, is back on display in Mexico.
This is not a permanent homecoming — France has yet to agree to Mexico’s longstanding request for full restitution — but for the first time in almost 200 years, the public can see it up close, at the Museo Nacional de Antropologia in Mexico City.
A Pictographic Account of the Fall of Tenochtitlan
The Codex Azcatitlan is a 16th-century manuscript that weaves together Mesoamerican pictograms and annotations written in European script.
Across its 25 parchment sheets — made from materials imported from Europe — it traces the migration of the Mexica people from Aztlan, the mythic homeland of the Aztecs, to the founding of Tenochtitlan.
The narrative follows the succession of rulers, or tlatoanis, up to the Spanish conquest and the forced conversion to Christianity that followed.
According to historian Maria Castaneda de la Paz of the Instituto de Investigaciones Antropologicas, the work was created by an indigenous Otomi artisan shortly after the fall of the Aztec empire.
How It Ended Up in a Parisian Library
The manuscript made its way to Europe in the hands of Joseph Marius Alexis Aubin, a French researcher specializing in indigenous American cultures, who brought it from Mexico in the mid-19th century.
Decades later, in 1898, the widow of Franco-Mexican collector Eugene Goupil donated it to the Bibliothèque nationale de France, which has held it ever since.
The Codex Azcatitlan is not the only document of its kind held in France.
Alongside the Codex Borbonicus — which records the Mexica divinatory and solar calendars and is now housed in the library of the French National Assembly — it is one of only two major visual records of Aztec life that remain outside Mexico.
A Loan, Not a Return
The current exhibition, on view through December, is the result of a cultural exchange agreement between the two countries, marking 200 years of diplomatic relations between Mexico and France.
Under the terms of that agreement, while the Codex Azcatitlan crossed the Atlantic toward Mexico, another historical Mexican document — the Codex Boturini — made the opposite journey, going on display in France.
Ultimately, this is a temporary loan, not the permanent restitution that successive Mexican governments have demanded for years.
The Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia sees that demand as part of a broader push to recover colonial-era artifacts now held abroad.
The demand is neither new nor limited to this manuscript. In 1982, a Mexican lawyer named Jose Luis Castaneda removed another manuscript, the Codex Tonalamatl, from the Bibliothèque nationale de France and brought it back to Mexico without authorization.
The episode set off a serious diplomatic row between the two countries and remains one of the most frequently cited cases in the debate over the return of indigenous artifacts.
How to See the Codex in Mexico City
The codex is on display at the Museo Nacional de Antropología, widely regarded as one of the most important museums in Latin America.
Located along Paseo de la Reforma within the Bosque de Chapultepec, it is easily accessible by public transit from the Auditorio (Line 7) or Chapultepec (Line 1) metro stations, both roughly three-quarters of a mile from the entrance.
The museum is open Tuesday through Sunday, generally from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., depending on the season. General admission is affordable, with free entry for children under 13, adults over 60 with an INAPAM card, and visitors with disabilities.
In addition to the two sheets of the Codex Azcatitlan displayed in a specially designed case, the museum’s permanent collection includes some of the most iconic objects in Mexico’s pre-Hispanic history, among them the Piedra del Sol.
A single visit therefore lets you take in this temporary exhibition alongside a much broader journey through the country’s indigenous past.
For the indigenous Mexican communities that have spent years calling for the restitution of documents like this one, seeing the codex in person — even temporarily — carries a symbolic weight that no museum ticket can measure.
