The Codex Saville
Subtitle: America's oldest book
By: Rev. Mariano Cuevas, S.J., member of the Academy of Spain and of the American Antiquarian Society
Publisher: Catholic Historical Society
Published: 1929
Place of publication: United States
Language: eng
Number of pages: 14
Subjects: Manuscripts, Mexican (Pre-Columbian); History and criticism; Mexican Manuscripts; History and critcism; Nahuatl Manuscripts
Other titles: America's oldest book; Codex Tetlapalco; Códice protohistórico; Codex Telapalco; Codex Brooklyn; Historical records and studies.
Description: "The Codex Saville is a vertical tira with pictorial annals of the years between 1407 and 1535, including succession of the rulers of Tenochtitlan from Huitzilihuitl through Motecuhzoma II Xocoyotzin and the Spanish conquest."--Handbook to life in the Aztec world.
Notes: Place of publication and date information from Salomon Rosenthal, bookseller.

"The Codex Saville was recently secured [by Marshall H. Saville] in Lima, Peru, by the Heye Foundation of New York City [presented by Mrs. Thea Heye]."--Page 1.

"If it is the oldest Mexican historical Codex, we might easily conclude that it is the oldest book in America as nothing of the kind was ever painted by any of the other native Indians of either North or South America."--Page 14.

According to the Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of the American Indian, the Codex had been created between 1450 and 1557; it is amate (fig tree) paper.

Digital copy of the codex (color and black and white images) is at https://www.si.edu/object/NMAI_147424 (viewed October 18, 2019).

At head of title: Catholic Historical Records and Studies.

Unnumbered folded plate is a black and white reproduction of the Codex Saville, in horizontal.

Caption title.

Includes bibliographical references.

Lib. copy inscribed by Mariano Cuevas in ink script at top of caption title page: Al insigne historiógrafo, y excelente [amigo?]  / Lic. Primo Feliciano Velazquez / Mariano Cuevas [SJ?] / S. Luis 7 Dic. 1929.

Offprint from Historical Records and Studies, 19 (1929): pages 7-20.