“As the Mexican paintings are the most curious monument extant of the earliest mode of writing, it will not be improper to give some account of the means by which they were preserved from the general wreck of every work of art in America, and communicated to the public. For the most early and complete collection of these published by Purchas, we are indebted to the attention of that curious inquirer, Hakluyt. “Don Antonio Mendoza, viceroy of New Spain, having deemed those paintings a proper present for Charles V., the ship in which they were sent to Spain was taken by a French cruiser, and they came into the possession of Thevet, the King’s geographer, who, having travelled himself into the New World, and described one of its provinces, was a curious observer of whatever tended to illustrate the manners of the Americans. “On his death they were purchased by Hakluyt, at that time chaplain of the English ambassador to the French court; and being left by him to Purchas, were published at the desire of the learned antiquary Sir Henry Spelman. They were translated from English into French by Melchizedeck Thevenot, and published in his collection of voyages, A.D. 1683. “The second specimen of Mexican picture-writing was published by Dr. Francis Gemelli Carreri, in two copper-plates. The first is a map, or representation of the progress of the ancient Mexicans[72] on their first arrival in the country, and of the various stations in which they settled, before they founded the capital of their empire in the lake of Mexico. The second is a chronological wheel, or circle, representing the manner in which they computed and marked their cycle of fifty-two years. He received both from Don Carlos de Siguenza y Congorra, a diligent collector of ancient Mexican documents. “But as it seems now to be a received opinion (founded, as far as I know, on no good evidence) that Carreri was never out of Italy, and that his famous _Giro del Mundo_ is an account of a fictitious voyage, I have not mentioned these paintings in the text. They have, however, manifestly the appearance of being Mexican productions, and are allowed to be so by Boturini, who was well qualified to determine whether they were genuine or supposititious. Mr. Clavigero likewise admits them to be genuine paintings of the ancient Mexicans. To me they always appeared to be so, though, from my desire to rest no part of my narrative upon questionable authority, I did not refer to them.