Its origin is unknown. The papers in which it was wrapped bore the name “Perez,” in a Spanish hand of the seventeenth century, and hence the name “Peresianus” was given it. By order of the Minister of Public Instruction, ten photographic copies of this Codex, without reduction, were prepared for the use of scholars. None of them were placed on sale, and so far as I know the only one which has found its way to the United States is that in my own library. An ordinary lithographic reproduction was given in the _Archives paléographiques de l’Orient et de l’Amérique_, tome I. (Paris, 1869–'71).
_The Codex Tro_, or _Troano_.—The publication of this valuable Codex we owe to the enthusiasm of the Abbé Brasseur (de Bourbourg). On his return from Yucatan in 1864 he visited Madrid, and found this Manuscript in the possession of Don Juan de Tro y Ortolano, professor of paleography, and himself a descendent of Hernan Cortes. The abbé named it _Troano_, as a compound of the two names of its owner; but later writers often content themselves by referring to it simply as the _Codex Tro_.
It consists of thirty-five leaves and seventy pages, each of which is larger than a page of the Dresden Codex, but less than one of the _Codex Peresianus_. It was published by chromo-lithography at Paris, in 1869, prefaced by a study on the graphic system of the Mayas by the abbé, and an attempt at a translation. The reproduction, which was carried out under the efficient care of M. Leonce Angrand, is extremely accurate.
_The Codex Cortesianus._—This Codex, published at Paris, 1883, under the editorship of Professor Leon de Rosny, presents the closest analogy to the Codex Troano, of which, indeed, it probably formed a part. It has forty-two leaves, closely written in the calculiform character. There is no evidence that it was brought to Spain by Cortes, but from a tradition to that effect, it has received its name.
All four of these codices were written on paper manufactured from the leaves of the maguey plant, such as that in common use in Mexico. In Maya the maguey is called _ci_, the varieties being distinguished by various prefixes. It grows luxuriantly in most parts of Yucatan, and although the favorite tipple of the ancient inhabitants was mead, they were not unacquainted with the intoxicating _pulque_, the liquor from the maguey, if we can judge from their word for a drunkard, _ci-vinic_ (_vinic_==man). The old writers were probably in error when they spoke of the books being made of the barks of trees; or, at least, they were not all of that material.