Kevin Terraciano
Kevin Terraciano![]()
Professor, Department of History, University of California, Los Angeles
Mexica heroes of the War in Tenochtitlan and Tlatelolco, 1520-21
Abstract:
The final chapters of Book 12 of the Florentine Codex commemorate numerous Mexica heroes who led the resistance to the invasion of their island in 1520-21. Many of the eagle and jaguar warriors are named and praised for courageous acts in battle. Aside from Quauhtemoctzin, who is recognized as Moteuczoma’s successor in Book 12, almost all of their names are unfamiliar to us today. This presentation examines some of these heroes, many of whom appear in other indigenous texts and paintings from the period, and considers how and why Nahua writers and artists remembered and eulogized the people who fought bravely to defend their homeland.
Kevin Terraciano is Professor of History and Dr. E. Bradford Burns Chair in Latin American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. He specializes in the history of colonial Mexico and the indigenous cultures and languages of Mesoamerica. He is the author of several prize-winning publications, including The Mixtecs of Colonial Oaxaca (Stanford). He co-edited two books in 2019: The Florentine Codex: An Encyclopedia of the Nahua World in Sixteenth-Century Mexico (U. Texas), with Jeanette Peterson, and Canons and Values: Ancient to Modern (Getty), with Larry Silver. Terraciano is a co-founder of the Digital Florentine Codex Initiative at the Getty Research Institute.