Audio guide:
Circulating among Bolognese families, the Codex Cospi ended up in the hands of Valerio Zani, who donated it to Marquis Ferdinando Cospi on December 26, 1665, as attested by an inscription on the parchment covers that were added to the codex in Bologna. The manuscript was first mentioned as a Chinese book in the inscription on the cover and in a 1667 catalogue of the Cospi collection, which included other Mesoamerican objects from Betanzos’ gift and which was later transferred to the Palazzo Pubblico.
It was not until 1677 that Lorenzo Legati recognized the manuscript as a Mexican work, correcting the inscription on the cover. Legati described the codex in detail in the Museo cospiano (1677), where four woodcuts of some of its images were published. The codex was also included in a later inventory of the Cospi collection, published in 1680.
