Our opening pick for the weekly journey into data visualization design goes not to a chart, or map, or graphic, but to a whole set of beautiful illustrations depicting the life and ways of the Aztec. The sixteenth-century Codex Mendoza, created about twenty years after the Spanish conquest of Mexico with the intent that it be seen by Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain, is an extraordinary document, for aesthetic and historical reasons.
Its 71 page show the story of the Aztec rulers and their conquests, a list of the tribute paid by the conquered, and a description of daily Aztec life, in traditional Aztec pictograms with Spanish explanations and commentary. The manuscript has been held at the Bodleian Library at Oxford University since 1659, and was removed from public exhibition in 2011.
Here are a couple of those illustrations, followed by the typical set of vintage information designs
Codex Mendoza (c.1550)
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Flood victims litter river banks (1909) | The San Francisco Call
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Perú (1938) | Fortune Magazine
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The English Fleet on the St. Lawrence and Lake Ontario, 1758-60 (1757)
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Corporum Coelestium Magnitudines (1660) | Andreas Cellarius
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Exercising on a small table (1910) | The San Francisco Call
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Sir Francis Drake’s Raid on St. Augustine (1599) | Theodore De Bry
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Great Western Railway (1910)
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Tea revives the world (1940) | Leslie MacDonald Gill
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Game of Secession, or Sketches of the Rebellion (1862) | Charlton & Althrop
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Selandiae in Regno Daniae Insulae Chorographica Descriptio (c1650) | Johannes Jansson
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Map of the Atlantic-Pacific Railroad (1883) | J H Colton
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USA, meat and bakery (1947) | Fortune Magazine
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The “Time & Tide” Map of The Atlantic Charter (1942) | Leslie MacDonald Gill
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That’s it for today’s round up! We’ll be back next week with another selection, but until then, enjoy our Pinterest board, just with old maps and infographics.
Written by Tiago Veloso
Tiago Veloso is the founder and editor of Visualoop and Visualoop Brasil . He is Portuguese, currently based in Bonito, Brazil.