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Lorenzo Boturini Benaduci

  "Lorenzo Boturini Benaduci (1702, Como, Italy – 1753, Madrid) was a historian, antiquary and ethnographer of New Spain, the Spanish Empire's colonial dominions in North America.
Boturini went to New Spain in 1736, where he remained eight years. During those years he assembled a vast collection of paintings, maps, manuscripts and native codices. He copied more than 500 pre-Columbian inscriptions and made his own drawings of monuments and sculptures,....  He traveled widely and on his travels brought together the largest collection of Mexican antiquities assembled to that time by a European. 
On 2 June 1743, he was imprisoned and impounded his collection. He was accused of entering New Spain without license...." 

 

The Boturini Collection

"The Boturini Codex collection was formed between 1735 and 1743, to serve as the basis of a projected Historia de América Septentrional. It consisted of many valuable documents, the majority of them of Indian provenance. Among these were hieroglyphic paintings that had belonged to Juan de Alva Ixtlilxochitl, a descendant of the rulers of Texcoco. Ixtlilxotchitl bequeathed these documents to Don Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora.
The collection was confiscated by Viceroy Pedro Cebrián y Agustín at the time of Boturini's arrest in 1743. It was deposited in the office of the secretary of the viceroyalty. The documents were neglected there for years and suffered considerable pilferage."

(Wikipedia, 2014, Lorenzo Boturini Benaduci)

Boturini Codex (Wikimedia Commons)