Page:A Study of the Manuscript Troano.djvu/38

xxxii the pages in Kingsborough's edition. The artist Aglio took first one fragment and copied both sides, and then proceeded to the next one; and it is not certain that in either case he begins with the first page in the original order of the book.

The Codex Peresianus, or Codex Mexicanus, No. II, of the Bibliothèque Nationale of Paris.—This fragment—for it is unfortunately nothing more—was discovered in 1859 by Prof Leon de Rosny among a mass of old papers in the National Library. It consists of eleven leaves, twenty-two pages, each 9 inches long and 5 inches wide. The writing is very much defaced, but was evidently of a highly artistic character, probably the most so of any manuscript known. It unquestionably belongs to the Maya manuscripts.

Its origin is unknown. The papers in which it was wrapped bore the name "Perez," in a Spanish hand of the seventeenth century, and hence the name "Peresianus" was given it. By order of the Minister of Public Instruction ten photographic copies of this Codex, without reduction, were prepared for the use of scholars. None of them was placed on sale, and so far as I know the only one which has found its way to the United States is that in my own library. An ordinary lithographic reproduction was given in the Archives paléographiques de l'Orient et de l'Amerique, tome i (Paris, 1869-'71).

The Codex Tro, or Troano.—The publication of this valuable Codex we owe to the enthusiasm of the Abbé Brasseur (de Bourbourg). On his return from Yucatan in 1864 he visited Madrid, and found this Manuscript in the possession of Don Juan de Tro y Ortolano, professor of paleography, and himself a descendant of Hernan Cortes. The abbé named it Troano, as a compound of the two names of its former owner; but later writers often content themselves by referring to it simply as the Codex Tro.

It consists of thirty-five leaves and seventy pages, each of which is larger than a page of the Dresden Codex, but less than one of the Codex Peresianus. It was published by chromolithography at Paris, in 1869 prefaced by a study on the graphic system of the Mayas by the abbé, and an attempt at a translation. The reproduction, which was carried out under the efficient care of M. Leonce Angrand, is extremely accurate.

All three of these codices were written on paper manufactured from