HISTORY OF MEXICO. 



327 



pain, and others named in the catalogue of writers, at 

 the beginning of this hiftory, have been compofed by 

 the ailiitance of a great number of ancient paintings. 

 The indefatigable Sahagun, confulted an infinity of 

 paintings for his hiftory of New Spain. Torquemada 

 often cites the pictures which he examined for his work. 

 Siguenza inherited the manufcripts and paintings of Ix- 

 tlilxochitl, and procured many others at a great ex- 

 pen fe, and after having made his extracts from them, 

 left them at his death, together with his valuable library, 

 to the college of St. Peter and St. Paul, of the Jefuits 

 of Mexico $ in which library we faw and ftudied fome 

 of thofe paintings. During the two I aft centuries, an- 

 cient paintings were frequently produced at tribunals by 

 the Mexicans, as titles of property, and the poflfeftion 

 of lands ; and on that account, interpreters fkiiled in 

 the fignifications of fuch paintings were confulted. Gon- 

 zalez Oviedo makes mention of that cuftom at tribunals 

 in the times of Sebaftiano Ramirez de Fuenleal, prefident 

 of the royal audience of Mexico ; and as the know- 

 ledge of fuch titles was of great importance to the de- 

 cifion of fuits, there was formerly a profelfor in the uni- 

 versity of Mexico, appointed to teach the fcience of 

 Mexican paintings, hieroglyphics, and characters. The 

 many pictures collected a few years ago by Boturini, 

 and mentioned in the Catalogue of his mufeum, publifh- 

 ed at Madrid, in 1746, demonftrate, that not quite fo 

 few as M. de Paw and Dr. Robertfon imagine, have ef- 

 caped the burning by the miflionaries. 



In ftiort, to confirm what we have written in this hif- 

 tory, and let M. de Paw underftand the variety of Mex- 

 ican paintings, we mail mention here briefly what Dr. 

 Eguiara has written in his learned Preface to his Bibli- 



otheca 



