PAINTINGS* 



xxxvii 



figure of the century, and the Mexican year, is the fame 

 in efFe£l with that publiflied a century before in Italy by 

 Valades, in his Christian Rhetorick. Siguenza, after 

 having made ufe of the above mentioned paintings in his 

 learned works, left them at his death to the college of 

 St. Peter and St. Paul of the Jefuits of Mexico; to- 

 gether \yith his fele£i: library, and excellent mathematical 

 inftruments ; where we faw and confulted in the year 

 i759,fome volumes of fuch paintings, containing chiefly 

 the penal laws of the Mexicans. 



V. The Collection of Boturini. This valuable collec- 

 tion of Mexican antiquities, feized upon formerly, and 

 taken from that learned and induftrious gentleman by the 

 jealous government of Mexico, was preferved chiefly in 

 the archives of the viceroy. We faw fome of thefc 

 paintings, reprefenting fome events of the conquefl:, and 

 fome fine portraits of the kings of Mexico. In 1770, 

 were publifhed in Mexico, along with the letters of 

 Cortes, the figure of the Mexican year, and thirty-two 

 copies of paintings of tributes, which were paid by dif- 

 ferent cities to the crown of Mexico, taken from the mu- 



feum 



had only the chart of the Mexican lake. " But as now," adds Robertfon, " it 

 *' appears to be a generally received opinion, fupported on I know not what evi- 

 " dence, that Carreri never went out of Italy, and that his famous Tour of the 

 *• World was the narrative of fidlitious travels, I have been unwilling to make 

 *» any mention of thcfe pitSlures." If we did not live in the eighteenth century, 

 in which the moft extravagant fentiments have been adopted, I fhould be allonilh- 

 cd that fuch an opinion was generally received. Who can poffibly imagine, that 

 any man -who was never at Mexico fhould have been capable of giving the moft 

 circumftantial account of the moft minute events of that time, of the perfons then 

 living, of their rank and employments, of all the monafteries of Mexico and other 

 cities, of the number of their religious, of the altars of every church ; and other 

 particulars never before publiflied ? On the contrary, we muft declare, in juftice 

 to the merit of this Italian, that we have found no traveller more accurate and 

 exad in relating all that he faw himfelf, or learned by iuformation from others. 



