Codex Borgia
Pre-Hispanic · Vatican Library
What it is
The Borgia is the densest of them all in ritual and divinatory content: seventy-six pages of folded deerskin, painted on both faces. It does not narrate history; it is a manual of the count of days.
Its origin is debated: probably from the Puebla-Tlaxcala area or of Mixtec tradition. It gives its name to a whole family of related codices, the «Borgia group».
What it holds
The twenty trecenas with their patron energy, the Nine Lords of the Night, the directions of the world with their trees and birds, and a central section of plates whose reading is difficult and still argued over.
It is the source of a good part of the associations this app cites: which energy rules each trecena, which companion falls on each day.
Where it is
In the Vatican Apostolic Library, in Rome. It takes its name from Cardinal Stefano Borgia, who had it in his collection in the eighteenth century. It is digitised and can be consulted online.
And it is the brother of Vaticanus B: same format, same style, and not one gloss in either.
Read this entry in Spanish, where the sixteenth-century sources are quoted in full.
How to cite this page
Alma Mexica, «Codex Borgia», The codices. Revised 2026-09-17. https://almamexica.org/en/codex/borgia/