Complete digitalized facsimile of Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala’s Nueva corónica y buen gobierno (New Chronicle and Good Government)

See the facsimile on the Guaman Poma Website of the Royal Library of Denmark.
http://www.kb.dk/permalink/2006/poma/info/en/frontpage.htm
[comments available in english and spanish]

The original manuscript was digitalized around the year 2000, in true colors (various shades of black to brown ink). [ so ... the colorful reproductions that we see here and there on the internet are not taken from the original manuscript ]

Each of the ~1200 pages, including 398 full-page drawings, can be examined closely, and downloaded, as a fine definition image. (click on the button "Larger Image")

The website also links to a wealth of digital resources related to Guaman Poma and his time.

We can read [http://wayback-01.kb.dk/wayback/20101105080508/http://www2.kb.dk/elib/mss/poma/docs/adorno/2002/index.htm] that before 2000, the manuscript already had a "history" (that is not considered to have excessively reduced its readibility) :

• repeated additions of sets of pages (by the author, to a work in progress ?)
• possible acquisition in Spain around 1655
• traces of distinct binding operations, one probably dating back to the 17th century that introduced errors in the sequence of quires
• earliest traces of the manuscript's appearance in the Royal Library of Denmark : 1729 ;
• first recorded appearance in the Royal Library : 1784-1786
• third binding and leather cover : around 1850
• "rediscovery" in the library in 1908
• 1908 to 1923 : manuscript is lent to another university and studied for preparing a transcription
• 1923 to 1927 : manuscript is lent to a museum, then to another university, for finishing the transcription work
• 1927 : manuscript is back to the Royal Library and undergoes a restauration including the reordering of several quires, the reinforcing of some pages
• 1930 to 1936 : first facsimile project ; photographs in black and white taken in the Royal Library and later retouched to enhance readibility [ rarely with erroneous interpretations ;  fortunately, this old facsimile is not the one presented on the Guaman Poma Website ; and it is not said that errors of the same type entered the recent facsimile (...)]