Celestial Cycles in the Codex Borgia Narrative

Chapter 7 discusses three different Venus almanacs in the Codex Borgia that incorporate dates in the 260-day count to plot the 584-day Venus cycle. These almanacs play an important role in almanacs bracketing the narrative, which displays close connections with the Venus cycle. Over the course of the year-long period represented in Borgia 29–46, the narrative shows changes in the Venus avatars to depict transitions in the planet’s cycle. The narrative also represents imagery of comets and meteor showers, and Milky Way deities that change over the course of the year. The seasonal cycle was clearly important in the narrative, and Chapter 7 emphasizes that the year represented in the narrative was significant in terms of astronomy, not only because of the total eclipse, but also because two key transitions in the Venus cycle took place around the winter solstice.