280 



plate : I have drawn some not uninteresting 

 notions from the hieroglyphic paintings pre- 

 served in the convent of San Felipe Neri at 

 Mexico : and I perused at Rome the manuscript 

 commentary, which P. Fabrega composed on 

 the Codex Mexicanus of Veletri : but I greatly 

 regret, that I am not sufficiently versed in the 

 Mexican language, to read the works written 

 by the natives in their own tongue, and in the 

 Roman alphabet, immediately after the taking 

 of Tenochtitlan. Consequently I have not been 

 able to verify the whole of the assertions of 

 Siguenza, Roturini, Clavigero, and Gama, on 

 the Mexican intercalation, by comparing them 

 with the manuscripts of Chimalpain and of Tezo- 

 zomoc, whence those authors assure us they 

 derived the notions which they have published. 

 Whatever be the doubts which remain on several 

 points in the minds of the learned, habituated 

 to scrutinize every fact, and adopt only what is 

 porously proved, I am happy to have excited 

 aVentioii to a curious monument of Mexican 

 scVpture, and to have given some new particu- 

 lararespetting a calendar, which neither Robert- 

 son W th* illustrious author of the History of 

 Astronomy \ppears to have treated with all the 

 consideration it deserves. This calendar will 

 be rendered stll more interesting by the ideas 

 we shall furnisk relative to the Mexican tradi- 

 'on of theyWr t^ es , or four Suns, which exhibit 



