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268 BENEDICT VADAKKEKARA sentation was not the result of 'uncontrolled slippage', or a kind of happy acci– dent with the Nahua voice as a surreptitious presence. Rather, it was through their mimetic aptitude and the intentional manipulation of multiple visual clues that native artists vocalized claims to buttress their respected colonial stature" (253). Two hypotheses are advanced in the two concluding studies of the book. H.B. Nicholson puts forward the reasonable suggestion that Fr Bernardino de Sahagun had access to a diagram of the Templo Mayor precinct of Mexico– Tenochtitlan, thus making it possible him to describe it. It was unlikely that he had any eyewitness account to go by. Finally the editor of the book, John F. Schwaller, tries to reconstruct the way the Florentine Codex ended up in Florence. The author thinks that the codex could have been a gift taken to the Grand Duke of Tuscany by the Spanish ambassador don Luis de Velasco. "The work would have been a gift for a cardinal who was known to collect Persian and Egyptian manuscripts, a patron of the arts, and the founder of the apostolic college charged with missionary activity abroad. The mammoth work of Sa– hagun would clearly be a very suitable gift for such a person" (273). Needless to say that the credit for bringing out these compendious vol– umes goes to the Academy of American Franciscan History. The scholarly con– tributions illuminate several aspects of the early evangelisation of the Meso– american regions by the Franciscan friars, highlighting at the same time the re– search position on many a historical issue. The studies as well open up several new vistas of further research for students of Colonial and Pre-Columbian Mexico. S0MMARI0: Lo studio ha come oggetto i primi tre volumi delle serie "Franciscan Publications in Nahuatl" di "Publications of the Academy of American Franciscan Hi– story". Il filo conduttore della serie e la prima evangelizzazione dei territori trail Messi– co Centrale e il Nicaragua ad opera dei Frati Minori Osservanti, cominciando dal 1523. Nel primo volume viene offerto una specie di catalogo dei manoscritti in lingua Na– huatl conservati negli Stati Uniti d'America; negli altri due l'attenzione si sposta sulle dinamiche evangelizzatrici dei prirni frati minori attivi in quelle terre, in particolare grande attenzione e data a due eminenti figure missionarie: fra Alonso de Molina e fra Bernardino de Sahagun.