Audio guide:
The support of Codex Cospi, as also happens with most extant pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican manuscripts, is deer skin. Five different skin strips were glued to reach a total length of 3.64 m. Then the surface of the skin was covered with a white background and screenfolded to obtain a total of 20 plates, measuring approximately 18 x 18 cm. As already mentioned, the screenfold-like structure (leporello) of the manuscript allows the reader to open a variable number of plates in front of his/her eyes.
Recent codicological analysis has shown that in the first phase of its life, the Codex Cospi consisted of only four strips of skin, reaching a total of 15 plates. Only thirteen of these were painted. Then, at a later date and probably in a different place, an additional skin strip was added to reach the current number of 20 plates; at that moment, eleven pages of the back were painted.