by Paul Guinan
In telling this story, my main challenge is keeping it as authentic as possible. All the persons and events depicted in Aztec Empire are based on the factual record, with some extrapolation as to specific character motivations, dialogue, costume details, etc. I'm cross-referencing primary sources from different viewpoints, looking at Mesoamerican and European sources with an awareness of their cultural biases as well as my own.
My favorite source is, of course, Mesoamerican codices: pictographic histories that provide rich visual reference. Of the hundreds of codices that still exist, only a few depict events of the Spanish conquest. The best example is Book 12 of Codex Florentine, which was edited, and translated into Spanish, by Bernardino Sahagun in the late 16th century. He spent decades studying Aztec culture and history, and he's widely considered to be the world’s first anthropologist.
On the Spanish side, there are only a few primary sources. Francisco Gomara, Cortes’ secretary and chaplain, penned the first detailed history of the Aztec’s fall a couple of decades afterward. But Bernal Diaz, a soldier in Cortes’ army and eyewitness to the conquest, thought that Gomara’s book inflated Cortes’ role. Diaz wrote his own memoir in response, an attempt to set the record straight, which would become the most significant work on this subject.
“Truth is always strange;
Stranger than fiction”
― Lord Byron
Aztec Empire Bibliography
Reports to King Charles V
Hernando Cortés, 1519-21
Codex Mendoza, 1535
Information from don Juan de Guzmán Itztlolinqui
Don Juan de Guzmán Itztlolinqui, 1536
Record of Some Things That Happened to Hernando Cortés
Andre de Tapia, 1540
Cortes: The Life of the Conqueror
Francisco de Gomara, 1552
The Destruction of the Indies
Bartolome de las Casas, 1552
Brief Record of the Conquest of New Spain
Francisco de Aguilar, 1559
The Annals of Tlatelolco, 1560
Chronicle of New Spain
Francisco Cervantes de Salazar, 1560
The True History of the Conquest of New Spain
Bernal Diaz del Castillo, 1570
Codex Aubin, 1576
Codex Tovar, 1580
Codex Florentine, 1550-80
The History of the Indies of New Spain
Fray Diego Duran, 1581
History of Tlaxcala
Diego Muñoz Camargo, 1584
The General History of New Spain: Book 12, Conquest of New Spain
Bernardino de Sahagun, 1585
Indian Monarchy
Juan de Torquemada, 1615
Codex Chimalpahin, 1620
A General History of New Spain: Account 13, of the Coming of the Spaniards
Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl, 1640
The History of the Conquest of Mexico
William Prescott, 1843
Burning Water: Thought and Religion in Ancient Mexico
Laurette Sejourne, 1956
Daily Life of the Aztecs
Jacques Soustelle, 1962
The Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico
Miguel León-Portilla, 1962
The Great Temple of the Aztecs: Treasures of Tenochtitlan
Eduardo Matos Moctezuma, 1988
The Aztec Kings: The Construction of Rulership in Mexica History
Susan D. Gillespie, 1989
Aztecs: An Interpretation
Inga Clendinnen, 1991
Conquest: Montezuma, Cortes, and the Fall of Old Mexico
Hugh Thomas, 1993
We People Here: Nahuatl Accounts of the Conquest of Mexico
James Lockhart, 1993
Aztec Warfare: Imperial Expansion and Political Control
Ross Hassig, 1995
The Tenochca Empire of Ancient Mexico
Pedro Carrasco, 1999
Fifteen Poets of the Aztec World
Miguel León-Portilla and Grace Lobanov, 2000
Who’s Who of the Conquistadors
Hugh Thomas, 2000
Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest
Matthew Restall, 2003
Mexico and the Spanish Conquest
Ross Hassig, 2006
Tenochtitlan: Digging for the Past
Leonardo Lopez Lujan and Flora Levin, 2006
Handbook to Life in the Aztec World
Manuel Aguilar-Moreno, 2006
Malintzin’s Choices: An Indian Woman in the Conquest of Mexico
Camilla Townsend, 2006
Bonds of Blood: Gender, Lifecycle, and Sacrifice in Aztec Culture
Caroline Dodds Pennock, 2008
Chimalpahin's Conquest: A Nahua Historian's Rewriting of Francisco Lopez de Gomara's La Conquista de Mexico
Edited and Translated by Susan Schroeder, Anne J. Cruz, Cristian Roa-de-la-Carrera, David E. Tavárez, 2010
The Glories of the Republic of Tlaxcala
Jaime Cuadriello, 2011
Aztec Archeology and Ethnohistory
Frances Berdan, 2014
Insignia of Rank in the Nahua World
Justyna Olko, 2014
Aztec Philosophy: Understanding A World In Motion
James Maffie, 2014
The Fate of Earthly Things: Aztec Gods and God-Bodies
Molly Bassett, 2015
The First Letter from New Spain: The Lost Petition of Cortes and his Company, June 20, 1519
John Schwaller with Helen Nader, 2015
Tlacaelel Remembered: Mastermind of the Aztec Empire
Susan Schroeder, 2016
When Montezuma Met Cortes: The True Story of the Meeting that Changed History
Matthew Restall, 2018
Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs
Camilla Townsend, 2019
Collision of Worlds: A Deep History of the Fall of Aztec Mexico and the Forging of New Spain
David Carballo, 2020
Deciphering Aztec Hieroglyphs: A Guide to Nahuatl Writing
Gordon Whittaker, 2021
In 1960, the series "Classic Illustrated" adapted the memoirs of conquistador Bernal Diaz. It remains one of a very few attempts to encapsulate this epic into a single comic book. Admirable, if not entirely successful.
Art Process