Codex Vaticanus 3738
(Cod. Vat. A, Codex Ríos)

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he manuscript was composed 1570 and 1589 on the Plateau of Mexico or in Italy, in the latter case similar to the Codex Telleriano Remensis which is preserved in Paris as a copy of a joint model that Robert H. Barlow denominated "Codex Huitzilopochtli".

While various hands appear in the Codex Telleriano Remensis, the Codex Vaticanus 3738 shows a unique style of handwriting; no one but this contains the cosmogonic-mythological and ethnographic sections of the hypothetic manuscript which served as a model, and these undoubtedly represent the most interesting part of the manuscript. The original manuscript comprises 101 folios made of European paper. The denomination Codex Ríos refers to the author of the Italian text who is mentioned in the manuscript, the Dominican Pedro de los Ríos - otherwise hardly known.

As it is not the question of a pre-Columbian document which would have required an in-every-detail original-true facsimilisation, the overlarge format (on average 46.5 x 29.5 cm - the pages are not all the same size) had to be reduced to 7/10 of the full size in order to avoid excessive costs. The reduction of the format corresponding to the size of the printing plates does not in any way interfere with the legitimate interests of the user of the reproduction.

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