«Aztec Latin is important for several reasons. It explains how and why alphabetic writing, Latin, and humanism spread among indigenous elites in colonial Mexico; it uncovers the work of Amerindian scholars who mastered classical and biblical legacies which today are little known; and it revisits the politics of Spanish colonization in the Americas. Andrew Laird's book means that the contribution native Mexicans made to early modern intellectual history can no longer be ignored.»

Serge Gruzinski, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris

«The encounter of the Nahua with Latin and the literate culture of the Renaissance is masterfully explored in this book. Medical treatises, vocabularies, grammars, biblical translations, pedagogical manuals, and edifying dialogues—some created to spread Christianity and others to account for the pre-Hispanic past—all pass under the careful gaze of the author, who manages to reconstruct the humanistic environment in which they were produced. With an unusual mix of directness and erudition, Andrew Laird changes our perspective and sheds new light on some of the most important works and personalities of sixteenth-century Mexico.»

Berenice Alcántara Rojas, Institute of Historical Research, UNAM, Mexico

«In Aztec Latin, Andrew Laird transforms the intellectual history of the early modern Atlantic world. His learned and lucid book reveals the deep impact of Renaissance humanism on Europeans and Nahua alike. As Franciscans set out to form a cultivated indigenous elite, Latin and Nahuatl, classical texts and myths, and indigenous traditions and practices fused in novel and fascinating ways. These exchanges, made possible by force and disease, were highly unequal. Nonetheless, Mexican authors mastered classical rhetoric and Latin style, and used them to create innovative texts and advance favorable interpretations of their society and its past.»

Anthony Grafton, Princeton University