Finding the Florentine Codex in Utah is a reminder that I'm on the right path. It seems like such a coincidence that I get the feeling there's some deeper reason why I'd run into it here. I know that sounds hokey, and I can't explain everything that it means to me, but I can go into how I ran across the codex and how I feel connected to this amazing book. It's strange that a book could feel like a sibling or a friend? It's as if this book and I have both been displaced here in Utah. We've both taken a similar path; like two worlds with a similar orbit, and we just collided.
I found out about the Florentine Codex by going a little deeper into something that I was studying in school my junior year. In history, we were studying Hernan Cortés and the Spanish conquests in the Americas. I had a higher stake in that history than my guerro teacher and it motivated me to go a little further than the textbook, to dig a little deeper than his worksheet. I knew the story of Cortés probably better than all the people in the entire school. I grew up with the ghost of .
Mi Abuela told me his story (history) and how she was born in the Hospital de Jesus, the hospital that Cortés had built out of the ruins of Montezuma's palace. It's the oldest hospital in the Americas and it feels like a sacred place to me. I've been there with my grandmother several times on our "field trips" around her city: Mexico City, DF, Tenochtitlan, the center of Mexico / Aztlān, the Navel of the Moon, the largest city in the world, the most advanced city in the world in 1518 and in many ways, it still reigns supreme.
Abuela Adela and I have been all over Mexico City; from the Temple of the Sun and the Temple of the Moon at Teotihuacan on the outskirts of the city, to the floating gardens at Xochimilco, to the Museo de Arqueologia, Bellas Artes, the houses of Frida & Diego, Carlos Fuentes, Octavio Paz, Trotsky, to see the architecture of Luis Barragan, to the various street markets, to the historical streets that used to be waterways or causeways, to the political places like the Presidential Palace, to the plaza where the 1968 massacre took place. So many contrasts and contradictions in the Navel of the Moon; it is sublime.
The Hospital de Jesus is in the Historical District of DF down off the Zocalo, the main square, which is the second largest main square in the world. We usually take the metro and Abuela knows the right trains to get to our various destinations. She always takes the pink line when we go down to the historical district and we end up stopping at the Hospital de Jesus first. It's like she returns to the place where she was born. She knows the hospital staff because she's volunteered at the hospital for the last twenty years, and because of Abuela's connections we're allowed into the interior areas of the hospital to pay homage to the rich history of this place.
The inner sanctum houses a bronze bust of Cortés and a huge mural that depicts the first meeting of Montezuma and Cortés. The thing that I love most about this hospital is the beautiful garden in the interier courtyard. Most of the rooms have a window that faces the courtyard and can be opened so patients can smell flowers and other plants from the garden space; what a brilliant architectural feature for a hospital. I've always wondered if the bones of are somewhere among the flowers of this beautiful space.
It sounds like a strange idea, but it's possible. Upon further research into I've discovered that he's buried somewhere on the hospital grounds. The histories of his remains are even stranger, considering that Hernán Cortés actually died in his own bed in Sevilla, Spain on December 2nd, 1547 and was buried two days later in the mausoleum of the Duke of Medina in the church of San Isidro Del Campo in Seville. About 80 years after his death, people started moving his remains. Here's what I found on Wikipedia:
In 1629, Don Pedro Cortés the fourth "Marquez del Valle, his last male descendant, died, so the viceroy decided to move the bones of Cortés along with those of his descendant to the Franciscan church in México. This was delayed for nine years, while his body stayed in the main room of the palace of the viceroy. Eventually it was moved to the Sagrario of Franciscan church, where it stayed for 87 years. In 1716, it was moved to another place in the same church. In 1794, his bones were moved to the "Hospital de Jesus" (founded by Cortés), where a statue by Tolsá and a mausoleum were made. There was a public ceremony and all the churches in the city rang their bells. [citation needed]
In 1823, after the independence of México, it seemed imminent that his body would be desecrated, so the mausoleum was removed, the statue and the coat of arms were sent to Palermo, Sicily, to be protected by the Duke of Terranova. The bones were hidden, and everyone thought that they had been sent out of México. In 1836, his bones
were moved to another place in the same building. [clarification needed]
It was not until November 24, 1946 that they were rediscovered, [47]:467 thanks to the discovery of a secret document by Lucas Alamán. His bones were put in the charge of the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH). The remains were authenticated by INAH.[47]:468 They were then restored to the same place, this time with a bronze inscription and his coat of arms.[48] When the bones were first rediscovered, the supporters of the Hispanic tradition in Mexico were excited, but one supporter of an indigenist vision of Mexico "proposed that the remains be publicly burned in front of the statue of Cuauhtemoc, and the ashes flung into the air".[47]:468 Following the discovery and authentication of Cortés's remains, there was a discovery of what were described as the bones of Cuauhtémoc, resulting in a "battle of the bones".[47]:468 In 1981, when a copy of the bust by Tolsa was put in the church, there was a failed attempt to destroy his bones.[citation needed]
All the research I've done shows the remains of Hernán Cortés are somewhere on the grounds of The Hospital de Jesus. He is buried among the remains of the golden age of the Aztec Empire he destroyed. And if that's not ironic enough, he's buried below a hospital that has served thousands and thousands of Mexicans who view Cortés as the villain who brought about the destruction of the Aztec Empire. Thousands of Mexicans have been born and died right on the same grounds that house the bones and ghosts of Cortés.
When I sit in the open-air Spanish colonial courtyard in the center ofthe hospital, I can feel how the space is completely charged with all the history.And I can feel the paradoxical presence of Cortés among the roses and these aresome of the reasons why I have to go further than the school textbook versionof Cortés. With all the mystery surrounding the bones of Cortés, I have to digdeeper. And in my quest, I found the Florentine Codex, right in my own backyard.
YOU ARE READING
MC Quixote
General FictionThis story is about a fifteen year old moving from Mexico to the United States with her deaf father. She experiences many challenges and turns to writing songs and creating music to overcome the difficulties of moving to a new culture while growing...
