Mesoamerican Mosaics from Early European collections. Style, Provenance and Provenience

The article focuses on the Mesoamerican mosaics proceeding from early European collections. Combining stylistic and iconographic observations with provenance, it defines two previously unrecognized stylistic groups, with no clear parallels in the extant archaeologically-excavated corpus, and proposes that their existence within the early European corpus is to be understood as the result of specific“provenance events”. More specifically, the distribution of most members of the two stylistic groups in early modern Italian collections reveals meaningful associations with other kinds of artifacts, such as pictorial manuscripts, carved and gilded spearthrowers, and stone figurines. Joining stylistic, iconographic and provenance data, the article argues that one group of mosaics (Group 1) is strictly related to the Borgia Group manuscripts and could thus be ascribed to Eastern Nahua groups of the Puebla-Tlaxcala valley. The second group of mosaics (Group 2), on the other hand, was historically associated with Mixtec artifacts and could be related to mostly Otomanguean groups from Southern Puebla-Northwestern Oaxaca. Both groups of mosaics seem to have been brought to Italy by one or more Dominican missionaries during the sixteenth century. Additional observations are also offered regarding the few mosaics in the early European corpus that do not fit into the two proposed stylistic groups: if Coastal Mixtec mosaics were also brought to Italy during the sixteenth century by a (probably Dominican) friar, the few properly Mexica mosaics within the extant early European corpus seem to have a collection history unrelated to the Italian peninsula, thus confirming the strict and meaningful relationships linking provenance and ultimate provenience.